REVIEWS 22 From the Vaults 102 New Albums 110 Books 142 Movies/DVDs 113 Singles 128 Lives
From The Vaults
Reissues, remasters and compilations
still Crazy
Formative soft-rock near-classic, belatedly dominated by
one song, adds demos. By Chris Roberts
Elton John
Madman Across The Water
kkk
UMC 3583613 (2CD/3CD/Blu-ray, LP/4LP)
There are people in their twenties now who
sing along to Tiny Dancer with no idea that it
was relatively unknown, even within the Elton
canon, until the turn of the century. Overlong as
a single, it didn’t make much impact at the time
of release. Only three decades later, in 2000, did
its prominence in Cameron Crowe’s film Almost
Famous, a romanticised love letter to the 70s US
rock scene, ensure that everybody, not just Kate
Hudson and Billy Crudup, knew every word of
every line.
Those are some curious words and lines. From
its cheesy opening of “Blue jean baby, .A lady...”,
Tiny Dancer finds a simultaneously naive and jaded
Bernie Taupin attempting to capture the feel of life
on the road. It fuses the wide-eyed innocence of
the farm boy with the glee of a young man seeing
all his wildest fantasies — about America, women
and rock'n'roll — come true. He’d married Maxine
Feibelman in April "71, and she was immortalised
herein as “seamstress for the band”. Her father was
a champagne importer, so the wedding reception
had been blessed by unlimited champers.
Bubbling through the muddled love lyrics of
Tiny Dancer, however, are the other key themes
of Madman Across The Water: the loneliness
of this endless touring, and the thrill of it: the
headlights on the highway. Bernie and Elton’s
obsession with Americana had already coloured
1970's Tumbleweed Connection, and the fact
that the US was keener on the singer than the UK
only consolidated their affection for the States’
mythology. Whereas that previous studio album
had still primarily engaged with Taupin’s
teenage fantasies about America, this
documented what it was actually like
to be stuck there, with fatigue as
an albatross, the gloss shedding
incrementally.
Technically, Madman Across
The Water, released on Bonfire
Night, was Elton’s third album
of 1971. The live set 17-11-
70 had emerged in April, and
the dreadful yet Grammy-
nominated soundtrack album,
Friends, in March. This, though,
was the spiritual follow-up to
Tumbleweed Connection. The title
track had even been recorded
for that album, with Mick
Ronson wailing on guitar.
The “re-recording” here,
with Davey Johnstone,
was more restrained,
oddly. However, it perhaps
92 Record Collector
sat better within the whole album, which generally
simmers under Elton’s over-the-top strangulated
American accent and tinkling piano. So much
tinkling. Gus Dudgeon’s production is solid but risk-
averse, a dash of gospel in the backing vocals, late
on, the only camp flourish. Even Paul Buckmaster’s
strings seem subdued, by his standards. You've got
session men like Rick Wakeman, Chris Spedding
and Herbie Flowers chipping in - Dudgeon wasn’t
overly impressed by Elton’s regular band — yet it all
feels like it prefers strolling to sprinting.
That does give it a lazy, rumbling swing, even
if it tamps down any charisma. Trident Studios
engineer Ken Scott was at the time quietly settling
in as producer on Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust,
but wasn’t allowed to unleash any moonage
daydreams here.
The album’s strengths lie in Elton’s then
insanely prolific, almost savant, gift for melody
and irresistible chord changes. Much like Tiny
Dancer, Levon is a splendid piece of construction,
which as a vocalist Elton sells hard. (Tony Burrows’
backing vocals help). Dudgeon claimed it was
inspired by Levon Helm of The Band, though
Taupin said that was nonsense. (He also denied
Madman Across The Water was anything to
do with Richard Nixon). Songs like Razor Face
and Holiday Inn (another whine about the hard
work of being a rock star) tread water; Rotten
Peaches and All The Nasties find a second wind.
Goodbye is a touching send-off.
Yet the other track aside from Tiny Dancer
which found a 21st-century resurrection is Indian
Sunset, which bizarrely was sampled in Ghetto
Gospel, the Eminem-produced 2004 UK chart-
topper from 2Pac “featuring Elton John”. If 2Pac’s
posthumous hit was anti-racism, the original song
is a slice of hasn’t-aged-well redface, where Taupin
imagines being a member of the Iroquois tribe,
chucking in words like “teepee” and “tomahawk”
and “squaw” with some historical inaccuracy.
He had visited a Native American reservation, in
fairness, but it feels like he spent most of his time
in the gift shop. Nonetheless Elton, a grafter and a
ham and a fine set of lungs, gives it his all, almost
convincing us it works. Like the album, and like
Elton’s career at this stage, it had more emotional
pull with Americans than with Brits. That course
was modified in April ’72 when Rocket Man came
out in the same month as Starman, and Britain was
invited to co-opt Elton to Glam.
This 50th-anniversary edition arrives — 51 years
on — as a straightforward 1LP Bob Ludwig remaster,
a 2CD set with rarities and demos, a 3CD & Blu-
ray with book and memorabilia (and ...Whistle Test
performance), or a 4LP box set with intros from
Elton and Bernie. Depending on your choice, you'll
find tweaked permutations. In essence, the key
Santa-drop here is a batch of Elton’s solo piano
demos — and who doesn’t want to hear him belting
out Tiny Dancer with full jazz hands to illustrate
how big he wants it to sound with the band? Then
there’s the BBC Sounds For Saturday recordings
(taped November '71), which — like most early
70s Elton live stuff — reminds us he was an earthy
rocker before he was someone famous for being
famous. Albeit a rocker with a knack for cooking
up a plangent ballad, whether Bernie was penning
gibberish or jewels that day.
That slow-burn, sleeper, near-freakish success
of Tiny Dancer means Madman... is
perceived through a different prism
now than it was then. In ’71,
it was another passable
huff and puff from a
workaholic striver who
was beginning to get
traction, had new
manager/boyfriend
John Reid fighting his
corner, and had only
recently moved out of
his mum’s place. Now,
it’s the Tiny Dancer album,
the rest of it a supporting
cast. And after all these
years, it still throws
you that that chorus
doesn’t come in for
ages. Half a century
on, it’s still all about
deferred gratification.
Photo (Elton John): Ed Caraeff
Elton John and Bernie
Taupin: “What do you
mean people won't get
into Tiny Dancer for
another 30 years?”
an
‘
From The Vaults
Broad Church
Compiling the diverse ideas of the Pixies leader's
other band. By John Earls.
Frank Black And
The Catholics
The Complete Studio Albums
Kktkk
Demon DEMRECBOX 68 (7LP)
Since Pixies reformed in 2004, the prolific
workrate of Charles Thompson IV, switching
from his original band’s alias Black Francis
to Frank Black, has been overlooked. There were
three entertaining solo Frank Black albums from
1993-96, and then he got seriously busy. From
1998-2003, Black’s band Frank Black And The
Catholics specialised in recording to two-track,
dashing off an average of an album a year (to
compensate for Black scrapping 2000’s Sunday
Sunny Mill Valley Groove Day on the eve of its
release, 2002 saw two Catholics albums).
In 2015, their albums were compiled in a
CD box set with assorted extras. Seven years on,
they’re out on vinyl, minus the extras. It means
three albums make their vinyl debut, including
fourth record Dog In The Sand — the absolute pick
of the Catholics’ six LPs, a pitch-perfect mix of the
surf-inflected cheeriness that frequently infiltrates
Pixies’ mania and the more straight-up classic
rock The Catholics had honed from their start. A
cult classic, Dog In The Sand is where it appeared
Black was finally being recognised as a frontman
and songwriter with more to him than Pixies. One
mischievous song is titled Llana Del Rio. Perhaps
Lizzy Grant was taking notes for her own alias.
Despite the basic recording techniques and
Q&A
ferocious productivity, there’s
far more going on here than
bar-band primitivism. From
their self-titled debut onwards,
a devilish energy was the main
common link. Black’s vocals
were more conversational than
his old band, and his lyrics
similarly unadorned. If you want to hear Thompson
as seemingly straight-up singer and lyricist, head to
1999's Pistolero. Even there, the Catholics throw
out garage rock, AOR, 50s rock & roll and alt.
country among its 14 tracks.
Such a mix is broadly typical of a band
determined not to overthink things. Sure, Heloise
from 2002’s Devil’s Workshop might have become
a fully-fledged powerful treasure with less scrappy
guitars, but would it have maintained Black’s fiery
menace so gleefully? Moreover, it’s preceded by
Are You Headed My Way, a brilliant slice of early
rock’n’roll where that second recording track
might just be a little too much. The tracklisting on
the debut album is in alphabetical order to save
thinking about sequencing, typifying a band who
appear to want to get their ideas down quickly
because there are so damn many of them they
want people to hear.
By the relatively normal country-rock flavours in
final aloum Show Me Your Tears, there was a sense
that even Frank Black And The Catholics needed a
break to recharge themselves. It’s been 19 years
now. With a new Pixies album due two months
after this competently assembled box (a booklet
with sleevenotes by producer Ben Mumphrey
and Steve Gullick’s enigmatic photos is the only
addition), maybe Thompson will find a way to have
two bands happily co-existing. It’s Black avoiding
demoitis and realising the first idea is often best.
They wouldn’t need long to get a comeback album
recorded, either.
about any of the repertoire has more to do with the
ditty nature of the material, more than the time it
was conceived.
your ambition. | have experienced both sensations.
Why did recording to two-track become part of
the band’s ethos?
Frank Black on his part in
online music history and the
possibility of becoming a
Catholic again.
How does it feel to have Frank Black And The
Catholics’ albums assembled in a vinyl box set,
seven years after the CD version?
| try not to invest too much emotionally into these
formats. It wasn’t released on vinyl originally because
it wasn’t cost-effective; it’s getting released on
vinyl now because it is cost-effective. My emotional
investment begins and ends with music. Formats are
interesting, but they’re not the music itself.
How do you feel the band’s music has aged in
the past 20 years?
| think it’s aged well. Whatever doubts there may be
After three solo albums, why did you want to
start a new band?
As | recall, it just felt like the thing to do at the time;
consistent line-up equals a band.
The Catholics’ self-titled debut was the first
album to be commercially released to buy as a
download. How do you view your part in online
music’s history?
Like all online “history”, it’s interesting, but not what
it’s all about ultimately.
Lyrically, the Catholics’ style appeared more
straight down the middle than Pixies or your
solo music. How did you find the challenge of
approaching cliches without becoming cliched?
You make the approach. You either fail or succeed in
It happened unplanned on a weekend of “demo”
recording. The live to two-track demos revealed
themselves to be an exciting paradigm, at least
for me.
How do you feel about the band’s commercial
position in retrospect?
| have no feelings about commercial position as
such. You get what you get out of it. It’s showbiz.
Would you be interested in ever making more
Frank Black And The Catholics music, or touring
with them?
Possibly. We’re in touch and we’ve discussed both
occasionally. Nothing has materialised yet, but it’s a
lotta planetary configuration we are talking about.
As told to John Earls.
10cc
Ultimate Hits & Beyond
tok tok
Xploded TV XPLODED 112 V (2CD, 2LP)
I’m Mandy, buy me!
It’s a given that
10cc’s music
| will be endlessly
recycled, but the
concept here
differs from numerous previous
hits collections by stirring in
other, related elements to
justify the “Beyond” tag. These
include the three biggest singles
94 Record Collector
from Kevin Godley and Lol
Creme, plus half a dozen 6Os
classics written for others and
performed here by songsmith/
bassist Graham Gouldman.
Then there’s Hotlegs’ hit,
five 2006 Godley-Gouldman
collaborations and a clutch
of unreleased 10cc live cuts
from 2010. Perhaps the most
tantalising item is Natural
Wonder, an unreleased 1976
effort from the original four-
piece. Written for a Revion TV
commercial, it has a real Brian
Wilson vibe and complements
the approach of giving familiar
songs a new context. Beyond,
indeed! Michael Heatley
Tony Allen
Secret Agent
tototok
World Circuit WLP 082 (2LP)
Afrobeat classic circles back
on vinyl
From the money that Tony Allen
made alongside Damon Albarn
in the supergroup The Good,
The Bad And The Queen, the
Lagos-born
drum magus
was able to
By finance Secret
a Agent, which
he leased to Nick Gold’s World
Circuit label in 2009. The
self-produced album received
extremely positive reviews
at the time and now, two
years after Allen’s death, has
been remastered for a deluxe
double vinyl reissue. Allen’s
effortlessly pulsing polyrhythms
provide the heartbeat for the
4
ye
set’s 11 tracks whose blend of
impassioned call-and-response
vocals and jabbing horn riffs over
a fluid groove rekindle memories
of the inedible Afrobeat sound
made by Fela Kuti, whom Allen
played with for 15 years. The
bounteous highlights range
from the mesmerising title
track to the more meditative,
jazz-tinged Switch and the
life-affirming Celebrate with
King Odudu on lead vocals. It’s
addictively danceable.
Charles Waring
Photo (Frank Back and The Catolichs): Steve Gullick
REVIEWS
Miller Anderson
Bright City
tokk
Esoteric ECLEC 2801 (CD)
Soulful Scot goes solo
\ iS Miller Anderson
| played
Woodstock
fronting the
Keef Hartley
Band before making a living
as a blues-rocker for hire
with Spencer Davis, Jon
Lord and others. This first
solo effort dates from 1971,
just post-Woodstock, and
originally appeared on Deram.
Contributors include Uriah
Heep’s Gary Thain (bass, a
fellow Hartley refugee), Roy
Thomas Baker (engineer)
and Junior Campbell
(orchestration), an indication
of his stature. The nearest
reference point is Traffic,
with woodwind, brass and
Hammond organ adorning the
songs. Anderson's trademark
blues growl alternates with
a reedy, almost folky vocal
delivery as he revels in his new
freedom. High Tide And High
Water (also a BBC session
cut) has remained a live staple
for half a century, but there is
much more to admire here.
Michael Heatley
Art Blakey & The Jazz
Messengers With
Thelonious Monk
Art Blakey & The Jazz
Messengers With
(Deluxe Edition)
tototbok
Rhino R1 670841/603497842391
Classic collaboration
between two jazz giants
No drummer
quite as hard
as Art Blakey,
the inspirational
Messengers, a prestigious
finishing school for jazz’s finest
young talents. In May 1957,
a frontline of saxophonist
Johnny Griffin and trumpeter
Bill Hardman — into the studio
composer Thelonious Monk
and came out with a six-track
masterpiece. Monk thrives
a polyrhythmic powerhouse
whose percussive élan results
in unique versions of some of
including Blue Monk, Evidence,
and a super-charged rendition
of the propulsive Rhythm-A-
into a seismic drum solo.
The second disc spotlights
previously unheard alternate
which are perceptibly inferior
to the versions that made the
final cut. A valuable jazz history
Thelonious Monk
(2CD, 2LP)
could swing
leader of the long-running Jazz
Blakey took his group — with
with the iconoclastic pianist/
in the presence of Blakey,
the pianist’s most iconic tunes
Ning, where Blakey breaks
takes of all six tracks, none of
lesson. Charles Waring
The Chemical
Brothers
Dig Your Own Hole
tohototok
EMI XDUSTX 2 (CD, 3LP)
Dance masterpiece
expanded for anniversary
Cementing
the duo’s
imperial phase,
1997’s second
Chemical
Brothers album houses
both the ultimate dance gig
opener and set closer, in the
grandstanding Block Rockin’
Beats and euphoric Private
Psychedelic Reel respectively.
The latter transcendent
epic features Mercury Rev’s
Jonathan Donohue, one of
several guests used perfectly by
Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons.
Despite his recent work with
David Holmes, Noel Gallagher
has never sounded so confident
on the dancefloor as he does
on the thumping Setting Sun.
A surprisingly heavy and intense
album for such a success, it
nonetheless captures the era’s
hedonism better than anything.
After the recent boxset for
1999's Surrender, the 25th-
anniversary extras are more
minimal here: five alternative
mixes and outtakes, the mellow
Cylinders and a sparser, still
beautiful take on Beth Orton
collaboration Where Do | Begin
the pick. John Earls
The Clash
Combat Roch/The People’s
Hall
tokkk
Sony 9439968552 (2CD, 3LP)
An extended public service
announcement with guitars!
Released in
. May 1982, 18
months after
Sandinista
became
arguably one of the most
crowd-splitting albums ever,
Combat Rock was The Clash
at their most succinct and
pithy. The size and afterlife of
big singles Rock The Casbah
and Should | Stay Or Should
| Go often put the rest of the
album in the shade: it’s full
of style and invention, a diary
of where the group were at
in 81/82, with guests as
diverse as Allen Ginsberg and
Futura 2000. Overpowered
By Funk, for example, was
the perfect partner to The
Magnificent Seven, continuing
the group’s love affair with
the groove, emboldened by
their legendary performances
at Bonds Casino in New
York. The additional 12
tracks here offer the fullest
representation of the 1981
People’s Hall material to
date, finally making Combat
Rock the ambitious double
album that Mick Jones
originally desired.
Daryl Easlea
Daft Punk
Tron: Legacy (Original
Motion Picture
Soundtrack)
UMC / Disney 8750257UK (2LP)
Decommissioned French
robots’ Hollywood outing
When the
soundtrack to
the long-awaited
sci-fi sequel
Tron: Legacy
was announced more than a
decade ago, fans viewed it as
more dithering from a band
that was becoming famous
for procrastination. Viewed
retrospectively, Tron: Legacy
maps out a whole other Daft
Punk, and while it is music
made to serve a purpose,
it stands up as a singular
work and has proven more
durable than the movie. It’s
a spacious and, at times,
awesome endeavour, featuring
the grandeur of an 85-piece
orchestra stitched seamlessly
into the French duo’s electronic
working methods. Guy-Manuel
de Homem-Christo and Thomas
Bangalter had enough savoir
faire to downplay their own
sonic identity for the cause,
instead referencing modern
masters such as Hans Zimmer
and John Carpenter, as well
as the original 1982 score by
Wendy Carlos. Jeremy Allen
George Duke
No Rhyme, No Reason:
The Elektra/Warner Years
(1985- 2000)
tototok
SoulMusic Records QSMCR 5203 T
(3CD)
US singer-songwriter’s
major label years
A multi-talented
keyboard
player, singer,
composer
and producer,
George Duke earned music
degrees from the San
Francisco Conservatory of
Music and San Francisco
State University. He recorded
albums with French jazz
violinist Jean-Luc Ponty —
playing on King Kong, Ponty’s
1970 homage to Frank
Zappa. Duke joined Zappa in
1970 and appeared on over
a dozen of Zappa’s jazz-rock
and orchestral albums. He
produced Gladys Knight, The
Pointer Sisters and Smokey
Robinson and joined Elektra
in 1985, debuting with Thief
In The Night, staking a claim
as the king of FM-friendly
smooth jazz and funk — with
five R&B chart entries to
back it up. The 45 tracks are
pulled together here on a set
drawing from his three Elektra
and six Warner Brothers
albums, with top quality
production and detailed
sleevenotes by RC’s Charles
Waring. Tony Burke
bluetones
Hailing from Heston in West London, The Bluetones (Scott Morriss —
bass, Eds Chesters — drums, Adam Devlin — guitars, and Mark Morriss —
vocals) arrived on the scene in late 1995/early 1996 with the #2 single
“Slight Return”, and #1 debut album “Expecting To Fly”. This album
and the following two were included in Edsel’s 2021 box set, containing
the band’s recordings from 1994 to 2002.
superior quality recordings 2003 - 2010
Deluxe 4 CD Box Set
This second box set contains The Bluetones’ second period of recordings,
from 2003 to 2010: 50 tracks across four CDs. It includes the albums
“Luxembourg” (2003), “The Bluetones” (2006) and “A New Athens” (2010),
plus the “Serenity Now” EP (2005), twelve B-sides, and two previously
unreleased tracks. The four CDs are presented in facsimile wallets, and the
booklet features newly-written notes by Adam Devlin on each album and the
EP, along with all the credits, and the singles sleeves featuring Scott Morriss’s
fabulous artwork.
L
»
luxembourg
Released in 2003, and the first on their own label Superior Quality Recordings,
“Luxembourg” was the band’s fourth album and features the singles “Fast
Boy”/”Liquid Lips” and “Never Going Nowhere”. As The Guardian review said
at the time, “You can’t fault their ever-lush harmonies, or the garage-band
scrappiness that gives ‘Here It Comes Again’ its appeal”. Now issued on vinyl for
the first time since 2003 (on translucent purple vinyl), the inner sleeve features
all the lyrics and credits, photos, and a beautiful drawing by Scott Morriss.
the bluetones
Released in October 2006, “The Bluetones” was the band’s fifth album and
reunited them with Hugh Jones, producer of their first two albums. It features
the singles “My Neighbour’s House”, ’Head On A Spike” and “Surrendered”.
Now issued on vinyl for the first time ever (on translucent blue vinyl), the
inner sleeve features all the lyrics and credits, photos, and another beautiful
drawing by Scott Morriss.
great music then great music now!
order now from
~~ as
Edsel Records is a division of the Demon Music Group Ltd, AN
London W12 7FA. www.demonmusicgroup.co.uk edSel
Follow us at www.facebook.com/Edselrecords sass
From The Vaults
SOUL
COLLECTOR
By Lois Wilson
Whatever You Want — Bob Crewe’s
60s Soul Sounds (a * > 4% Kent)
spotlights the New Jersey writer,
producer and arranger’s canon. An
indelible talent, he was able to move
with the times penning doo wop, girl
group pop, R&B for the dancefloor
and also for the brokenhearted. He
also found huge success, of course,
writing and producing for Frankie Valli
& The Four Seasons. Bookended by
Hal Miller and the Rays’ sublime An
Angel Cried from 1961 and the Time
Keepers’ 1970 buzzy intro 3 Minutes
Heavy, Whatever You Want is a joy
from beginning to end with further
standouts including Jerry Butler’s title
track, a dramatic ballad from 1963,
Shirley Matthews & The Big Town
Girls’ snappy (You Can) Count On
That from the same year and James
Carr’s punchy Sock It To Me Baby
from 1967. The Frankie Valli and the
Four Seasons tracks are ace, too. I’m
Gonna Change from their 1967 New
Gold Hits album was a hit on the 70s
northern scene, although it’s Valli’s
2
BOB
CREWE'S
"1
y
a
(You’re Gonna) Hurt Yourself from
65 that provides one of both his and
Crewe’s finest cuts.
From Plainfield, New Jersey,
keyboardist BERNIE WORRELL
was Classically trained at the New
England Conservatory Of Music and
The Juilliard School and his innovative
playing — whether on Hammond B3,
RMI Electra, piano or Minimoog —
was pivotal in the creation of the
P-Funk sound from 1970's Free Your
Mind... And Your Ass Will Follow by
Funkadelic to Parliament’s US R&B
No 4 Flashlight in ’78. That same
year, Worrell made his solo debut
with All The Woo In The World
(te tok Music On Vinyl) which
was originally released on Arista and
is here reissued as a limited edition
of 1500 individually-numbered copies
on translucent red coloured vinyl.
Its seven tracks, all loose jams, all
inimitably P-Funk, unsurprisingly so as
the album is co-produced by George
Clinton, features P-Funk compadres
including Garry Shider, Bootsy Collins
and Eddie Hazel and has Fred Wesley
arranging the horns. The high points
are the madcap Woo Together and
the 12-and-a-half-minute anthem
Insurance Man For The Funk.
RAY CHARLES gets political
on 1972’s A Message From The
People (Ac o& Tangerine). With
Quincy Jones producing, Sid Feller
arranging, a crack band featuring
Freddie Hubbard, Chuck Rainey
and Hubert Laws plus the glorious
Raelettes on backing vocals, Charles
is on fire, aligning himself to Marvin
Gaye, Sly And The Family Stone and
Stevie Wonder on a set of social
conscience gospel, soul and R&B
including a cover of the latter named’s
Heaven Help Us All. Elsewhere he
re-energises Lift Every Voice And Sing
and America The Beautiful and takes
Melanie’s What Have They Done To
My Song and Dion’s Abraham, Martin
And John to church.
New York City Blues (AH
Ace) is the soundtrack companion to
the book of the same name by Larry
Simon and edited by John Broven. It’s
a compelling snapshot of a vibrant,
eclectic scene and includes Blind
Boy Fuller’s rockin’ Step It Up And Go
from 1940, John Hammond’s 1965
garage R&B take on Billy Boy Arnold’s
| Wish You Would featuring Robbie
Robertson and Bill Wyman plus the
much in-demand Bobby Robinson
and Marshall Sehorn-produced Jack
That Cat Was Clean by Dr Horse aka
Alvergous Pittman from ‘62.
Reality’s Disco Party
(te oke ke He Jazzman) from 1976 was
conceived to fail. While the musicians,
formerly the Smokin’ Shades of Black,
led by Dr Otto Gomez, put their heart
and soul into the New York session,
the label it was released on, TSG,
was set up by the legitimate LPG
(Lloyd Price Group) company as a tax
scam — investors finance a record,
it intentionally loses money, they
register the loss against their taxes.
Nevertheless, ...Disco Party is an
enthralling slab of dancefloor funk and
deserves to finally reach its audience.
Nancy Wilson’s All In Love Is
Fair / Come Get To This (*%& 4%
Cherry Red), her 1974 and ‘75
albums respectively, signalled a shift
from jazz to soul with the recruitment
of producer Gene Page. Cushioned in
the kind of creamy, lush arrangements
coming out of Philly at the time,
she’s sultry and coquettish on All In
Love Is Fair, which includes her first
US Top 10 R&B hit in a decade, her
satisfying take on The Stylistics’ You're
As Right As Rain written by Thom
Bell and Linda Creed. On follow-up
Come Get To This, produced by Page
with his brother Billy, she stamps.
her authority on Marvin Gaye’s title
track and If | Ever Lose This Heaven
by Leon Ware and Pam Sawyer and
returns to the R&B chart with Harlan
Howard’s He Called Me Baby. This
Mother’s Daughter/ I’ve Never Been
To Me (#& %& %& Cherry Red) her 1976
and ’77 albums, the first produced
by Eugene McDaniels, the second by
Page with his sibling again, continue in
a similar vein.
Durham, North Carolina’s NIKKI
HILL is a blues shouter in the great
tradition of Ruth Brown, Etta James
and Koko Taylor. Her 2013 record
Here's Nikki Hill (> Hound
Gawd!) aligns her to Amy Winehouse
with 21st-century words pinned to a
vintage sound.
EAST OF UNDERGROUND’s
self-titled record (Ar tk a Now-
Again) is an album of soul and
funk and includes covers of Curtis
Mayfield’s (Don’t Worry) If There’s A
Hell Below We’re All Gonna Go and
The Impressions’ People Get Ready
plus the Undisputed Truth’s Smiling
Faces Sometimes. It was recorded
by a group of US soldiers drafted to
fight in the Vietnam war and stationed
in Frankfurt in the early 70s and
intended as a recruitment tool for the
US Army.
East Coast
East Coast
tok tok
Real Gone Music RLGM 13871 PMI
(LP)
1973 funk rarity from
short-lived Encounter label
Someone
forgot to tell
these guys
the East
Coast already
had Philadelphia. But if the
Bay Area represented the
West, Detroit the North, and
Memphis the South, this New
York City seven-piece clearly
felt the eastern seaboard
was theirs for the taking.
And it should have been:
| Found You marries tight
arrangements with runaway
energy while You Can’t Let
It Get You Down burrows
deep into Funkadelic’s
Maggot Brain shredding,
suggesting that East Coast
could have headed in any
direction they pleased had
they lasted beyond this sole
1973 album. No dead end,
it provided a waymarker in
singer Gwen Guthrie’s rise
to fame, and featured the
96 Record Collector
first recorded appearances
of future Cameo mainmen
Larry Blackmon and Gregory
Johnson. Jason Draper
Bill Evans
You Must Believe In
Spring
totototok
Craft Recordings 7226254
(CD, 2LP)
Influential jazz pianist’s
posthumous masterpiece
: ~~] With his
predilection
for delicate
melodic
= | filigrees etched
on an impressionistic canvas
of lush tone colours, Evans
revolutionised jazz piano
playing in the late 1950s.
For this writer, You Must
Believe In Spring, a trio date
recorded in 1977 with the
august Tommy LiPuma at the
helm, marks the pinnacle
of Evans’ work. Inexplicably,
this achingly beautiful record
didn’t surface until 1981,
a few months after the
pianist’s death. Perhaps
aware that his demise was
imminent (Evans suffered
drug addiction-related ill
health in his final years),
the album evinces a sombre
elegiac tone, epitomised by
the haunting B Minor Waltz,
the wistful Gary’s Theme and
a tender reading of Jimmy
Rowles’ The Peacocks. This
new vinyl edition, mastered
by the redoutable Kevin
Gray, comes on two 45 rpm
discs. Sheer perfection.
Charles Waring
Go West
Go West (Super Deluxe
Edition)
tok
BMG 5060516097609
(4CD/DVD, LP)
Pop duo’s debut gets the
deluxe treatment
The remaster
of Go West's
1985 self-titled
debut results
in the record’s
nine tracks hitting even harder
than the first time around.
Full of infectious pop songs,
it’s a misdemeanour that only
one of its five singles cracked
the Top 10. Bangs & Crashes
was a remix album released
the following year to capitalise
on Go West's success and
an expanded version makes
up the second disc. The third
disc contains a host of demos
and rarities while the fourth
finds the guys rocking the
Hammersmith Odeon for an
unreleased 1985 set that
shows their blue-eyed soul
transferring well to the live
environment. A DVD loaded
with promo videos, Top Of The
Pops appearances and a live
set from Japan are the icing
on the cake. Peter Dennis
Godley And Creme
Frabjous Days: The
Secret World Of Godley
And Creme 1967-1969
tot
Grapefruit CRSEG 100 (CD)
Vital piece of Manc history,
beautifully presented
The pre-10cc
history of Kevin
Godley and
Lol Creme
J is so often
dismissed in a sentence
in biographies. With
Frabjous Days, David Wells’
meticulously researched
selection proves that although
they may not have been as
commercially successful in
the 60s as Eric Stewart and
Graham Gouldman, their future
10cc partners, musically they
were more than equal. Adding
to the handful of tracks already
available commercially, Wells
has pieced together tracks
from demos and, in doing so,
completes their unreleased
album. The 19 tracks are
plump with invention. “You’ve
never heard of Chaplin House,”
sings Godley in one of those
strange, post-Sgt Pepper
baroque tales; Hello Blinkers
is a fine slice of discotheque
pop, originally pressed privately
for Blinkers night club in
Manchester. Soon Godley
and Creme would be part of
Hotlegs, and the rest, as they
say... Daryl Easlea
Grandmaster Flash,
Melle Mel & The
Furious Five
Sugarhill Adventures: The
Collection
tokkk
Cherry Red ROBINBX 50 (9CD)
Hip-hop pioneers collected
REVIEWS
Expanded reissue of underappreciated 1957 trio LP
commemorates the 100th anniversary of the bassist
and composer's birth. By Charles Waring
Richmond’s simpatico drums
and percussion, as they
breeze through a selection
of standards and largely
extemporised original material
recorded one day in July 1957.
Mingus supplies the
tune Back Home Blues, a
lazy nocturnal groove, and
the swinging Dizzy Moods
while Hampton proffers the
bebop-inflected Ham’s New
Blues; but arguably more
impressive are the cover tunes,
especially a sizzling uptempo
revamp of George Gershwin’s
Summertime, where Mingus’
driving bass line invokes the
spirit of Dizzy Gillespie’s A
Night In Tunisia. Eight recently
discovered outtakes from the
session are added as bonus
material; rather than being
merely forgettable also-rans
they're uniformly excellent
and crucial in aiding our
understanding of how the
session evolved.
Overshadowed by his Atlantic album The Clown,
released earlier the same year, the largely unheralded
Mingus Three has often fallen under the radar of jazz
fans; but this reissue proves that it deserves more
attention because it highlights Mingus the musician
rather than Mingus the composer, revealing his
Mingus Three: Deluxe Edition
Rhino/Parlophone 603497841059/1035 (2CD, 2LP)
“My life flashed before my eyes. | was sure | would
die.” These are the words of the pianist and arranger
Sy Johnson in his enlightening liner notes to Mingus
Three, recalling a fraught first rehearsal with the
badass bassist/composer who could scare musicians
shitless with just one hard stare. Mingus wasn’t averse
to using his fists to hammer his point home but on
this occasion, sometime in 1960 — three years after
Mingus Three was recorded — the bassist preferred
to punch the piano keys rather than Johnson's face
“while glaring into my eyes with a manic intensity”.
Happily, things didn’t take a turn for the worse, as
Johnson reveals: “Just as suddenly, he picked up his
bass, and resumed playing.” The pianist was relieved
but mentally scarred; like someone who had endured
a soul-searing baptism of fire.
This kind of incident wasn’t uncommon for
musicians playing with Mingus, whose pugnacious
personality and volcanic temperament could be deeply
intimidating. But on Mingus Three, the bassist’s only
recording for the New York Jubilee label, Mingus
played opposite a pianist he couldn’t so easily
bully; Hampton Hawes, a technically dazzling bebop
heavyweight who gave as good as he got in musical
terms. Their interaction on what is one Mingus’
most underrated and overlooked albums makes for
a fascinating musical dialogue, mediated by Dannie
Charles
Mingus: ace
of bass
absolute mastery of the upright acoustic bass.
As for Sy Johnson, he lived to fight another
day and eventually worked with Mingus on several
projects; and amazingly at 92, he’s still the arranger
for the ongoing Mingus Big Band and living proof that
what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
spoken word, this largely forgotten album — the bassist’s second and final
LP for the jazz indie label Bethlehem — opens with the evocative Scenes In
The City, a vivid portrait of black urban life narrated by the African American
actor Melvin Stewart. The words were written by the playwright Lonnie Elder
with help from the legendary Harlem poet Langston Hughes.
(Debut, DLP-17, Vinyl, 10” LP, US, 1955)
j Mingus briefly ran his own label called Debut, which he
founded in 1952 with his first wife Celia and the bebop
drummer Max Roach, but it only ran for five years. Roach features on this
hard-to-find four-track 10” LP the first of the bassist’s two collaborations
with trumpeter Thad Jones. (Columbia, CL 1370, Vinyl, Promo LP, US, 1959)
Containing the original versions of two of Mingus’ most
famous tunes — Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, a haunting elegy
marking the passing of tenor saxophonist Lester Young and
Fables Of Faubus, a satirical portrait of a racist US Governor — this aloum
is regarded as one of the greatest jazz records ever released. The promo
version with a white and red label is highly coveted; the Columbia label
features what collectors call “six eyes,” referring to small eye-like symbols
on the label’s outer edge.(The “six eye” labels were only used by Columbia
between 1956 and 1961).
c
e ») (Atlantic, SD 1260, Vinyl, LP, US, 1957)
. s.ggeysséRecorded as a response to critics who had said his music
ww didn’t swing, Mingus kicked off The Clown with one of his
© most famous tunes, the pugnacious Haitian Fight Song,
on which he could be heard urging his quintet on with raucous shouts.
The album’s title song, a comedic waltz, combines jaunty music with an
improvised spoken narration by Jean Shepherd, a Chicago humorist and
radio personality. One of the rarest and most desirable pressings of this
album was a 1959 one with a so-called “bull’s eye” label, a multi-coloured Geecte
pinwheel design that was briefly used by Atlantic &
album could be described as music for a jazz ballet. It
a& consists of a four-part suite for an 11-piece ensemble that
juxtaposes a through-composed score with passages of free-flowing improv.
It was the first of three Mingus albums for Impulse!
ee
m
(Impulse!, A-35, Vinyl, LP, US, 1963)
Considered Mingus’ masterpiece, this lberian-flavoured
(Bethlehem, BCP 6026, Vinyl, LP, US, 1959)
Another manifestation of Mingus’ desire to fuse jazz with the
Fae ee ey en ee Sn ae ee
Se Fee ren te
AL « T=,
bf Cu pee q If me Message
eu — “it’s like
Sa a jungle
re sometimes”
— invented
conscious rap, White Lines
(Don’t Don’t Do It) was
conceived as a celebration of
cocaine until the team twigged
it might get more radio play
as the opposite. Still, that
double negative winked at
listeners. Sugarhill Adventures:
The Collection is a scintillating
anthology, gathering all the
crew’s essential output: the
albums The Message and
Work Party plus singles and
remixes. And, in this case,
those remixes aren’t just filler.
While the personnel may have
fluctuated, for a brief blaze
this gang ruled. Among the
highlights, She’s Fresh and It’s
Nasty sound as inventive as
ever, and the pinpoint electro of
Scorpio is harder, better, faster
and stronger than anything Daft
Punk did. They got higher, baby.
Chris Roberts
Record Collector 97
From The Vaults
JAZZ
COLLECTOR
By Charles Waring
“Trane was the father. Pharoah
Sanders was the son. | was the holy
ghost.” So said ALBERT AYLER, the
Cleveland-born saxophonist whose
music, with its emotive shrieks and
visceral honks, was intensely spiritual
and drew heavily on his deep gospel
roots. A trailblazer of free improvisation,
he died in mysterious circumstances
at the age of 34 in November 1970
but just four months before that, he
joumeyed to Saint-Paul-De-Vence
in southern France for a couple of
concerts that were recorded and
distilled down into two French LPs
called Nuits De La Fondation Maeght
released on the Shandar label. Now
for the first time, all the music from
his French sojoum is released as
Revelations: The Complete ORTF
1970 Fondation Maeght Recordings
(th ttc ok He Elemental), a deluxe
5LP set mastered by the redoubtable
Kevin Gray. It contains over two hours
of previously unheard music and is
accompanied by a thick, informative
booklet packed with reminiscences of
Ayler from those who knew him. The
sound quality is astonishingly good,
capturing the mesmeric performances
of Ayler together with saxophonist/
vocalist Mary Parks, pianist Call Cobbs,
#;,
=
chet baker trio i
bassist Steve Tintweiss and drummer
Allen Blairman. The group’s set
contains impassioned, shiver-inducing
renditions of some of Ayler’s most
iconic numbers, including Ghosts and
Love Cry.
Also mastered for the same record
label by the in-demand Mr Gray is
another significant limited edition
vinyl set: Live In Paris (Ak 4% oe
Elemental) by the CHET BAKER
TRIO. It features recordings made by
Radio France in 1983 and ’84, which
documented the itinerant Oklahoma-
born hornblower and vocalist, then
in his early fifties, supported by
pianist Michel Graillier and bassists
Dominique Lemerle and Riccardo
Del Fra. Among the highlights is a
hard-swinging take on There Will Never
Be Another You and a lovely elegiac
version of But Not For Me, which
shows that Baker’s trumpet playing
was still at a high level during that
particular phase of his career.
Another high quality live recording
liberated from the archives is alto
saxophonist JOHN HANDY’s 1965
album At The Monterey Jazz Festival
(te We oe 9 Essential Jazz Classics).
Texas-born Handy rose to fame playing
on Charles Mingus’ iconic 1959 album
Mingus Ah Um and soon after began
making albums under his own name.
This memorable set, which originally
contained two super-long tracks shows
how Handy was playing unfettered
free jazz-style improvisations without
dispensing with tonal centres. As a
bonus, a later, much funkier track —
Tears Of Ole Miss (Anatomy Of A Riot)
— recorded live at the Village Vanguard
with vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson
and guitarist PAT MARTINO rounds out
the set nicely.
Talking of the late Philly fretboardist,
who died last November, a new various
artists album called Alternative Guitar
Summit: Honoring Pat Martino,
Volume 1 (a %& High Note) pays
tribute to his memory and music. There
are 14 contributors, ranging from Kurt
Rosenwinkel to Russell Malone and
Peter Bernstein, who all put their own
spin on their favourite Martino tunes.
Unsurprisingly, it’s a very tasteful affair.
The American jazz singer
MARK MURPHY - a brilliant but
underappreciated scat vocalist whom
Ella Fitzgerald once described as her
equal — was the subject of a fine
tribute album in 2019, Remembering
Mark Murphy by his protégé, New
York chanteuse Nancy Kelly. The early
part of the Syracuse singer’s career
is the focus of Four Classic Albums
(todo Avid), which includes Meet
Mark Murphy...The Singing M, Let
Yourself Go, Hip Parade, and Rah.
The latter LP with a supporting cast
that includes pianists Bill Evans and
Wynton Kelly, trumpeter Blue Mitchell
and drummer Jimmy Cobb, includes
a fantastic vocalese version of Miles
Davis’ Milestones.
Murphy had a fiercely independent
spirit, something that can also be
said of the gifted Washington DC
singer/songwriter HEIDI MARTIN,
whose latest album, the mesmerising,
self-produced Gifts & Sacrifices
(Ak to*’ HeidiMartinMusic),
highlights her smoky, Phoebe Snow-like
timbre as well as her ability to weld
astute socio-political observations with
poetic lyrics and cutting-edge sonics.
Imagine Joni Mitchell, Michael Franks
and Cassandra Wilson rolled into one.
Like Martin, the London-based
singer/songwriter LAURA ZAKIAN
brings a unique artistic sensibility to
the art of jazz singing. Her latest opus,
Dreaming Life («> Laura
Zakian) is a collection of musical
ruminations infused with atmosphere
and an aching sense of melancholy.
At 83, the revered jazz magus
CHARLES LLOYD is enjoying one of
the most prolific phases of his storied
career. Trios: Chapel (# eke
Blue Note), a beautiful live recording
with Bill Frisell and Thomas Morgan, is
the first in an album series the veteran
saxophonist is calling Trio Of Trios;
the remaining two titles in the sonic
triptych will appear later this year.
For those who prefer their jazz
dripping with atmosphere, then the
immersive experience that is London
Fields (a ke Here & Now)
served up by Colin Baldry’s aptly
named AMBIENT JAZZ ENSEMBLE
should hit the spot. Sounding like the
Cinematic Orchestra meets Eno and
Moby, perhaps, the band delivers a
cache of shimmering soundscapes
that resonate like the soundtrack to an
imaginary movie.
More mellow magic comes
from Tremors In Static (A ee
Gondwana) by VEGA TRAILS; it’s
a side project by Portico Quartet co-
founder, bassist Milo Fitzpatrick and
Mammal Hands’ saxophonist Jordan
Smart, whose musical interactions are
subdued but inspired.
Much livelier is Heat (tk tk ke Ae
Traumton) by Austria’s SHAKE STEW,
a uniquely configured seven-piece
band (two drummers, two bassists
and three horns), whose music is
an allusive, hard-to-pin-down blend
of disparate elements, ranging from
cool Ethio-jazz to blistering Afrobeat
grooves. Sizzling.
The singular MARY HALVORSON
is a guitarist whose innovations have
blurred the boundaries between
jazz, the avant-garde, rock and
noise music. She makes her debut
on Nonesuch with two contrasting
and spectacular new albums: the
iridescent Amaryllis (Atk eH
Nonesuch), where she fronts a sextet,
and the more tenebrous Belladonna
(tk Ae took Nonesuch), a set of
through-composed pieces featuring
the Nivos Quartet. Both are stunning
examples of Halvorson’s unique
approach to guitar playing.
Finally, BINKER GOLDING
serves up a solo album that’s very
different from his avant-jazz work with
drummer Moses Boyd. Mixed by Hugh
Padgham, Dream Like A Dogwood
Wild Boy (a %& % %& Gearbox) is an
eclectic affair that is by far the London
saxophonist’s most accessible offering
yet. Its tracks are very melodic and
thanks to Billy Adamson’s sterling
bottleneck guitar work, the music is
infused with a bluesy flavour.
John Lee Hooker and
Canned Heat
Hooker ’N Heat
tokotok
BGO BGOCD 694 (2CD)
Celebrated blues reunion
wT | In 1970, the
inimitable
talents of the
legendary
John Lee
Hooker were introduced to
one of the previous decade’s
outstanding white blues bands.
In retrospect, the resulting
double-album is also notable
for being the last recorded
work of Canned Heat's Al ‘Blind
Owl’ Wilson, who died in-
between creation and release.
His photo appears on a wall
behind the band on the cover.
The music is split between
solo Hooker, duets with Wilson
and five fully-fledged band
collaborations, between-song
chart adding to the intimate
atmosphere. Perhaps most
98 Record Collector
impressive is an elongated
take on Boogie Chillen which is
more than reminiscent of the
Heat’s On The Road Again. The
combination yielded Hooker’s
first US Hot 100 album, and it
still glows today.
Michael Heatley
The Kills
No Wow
tototok
Domino REWIG 168 (CD/2CD, LP/2LP)
Noughties garage-rock
staple gets new mix
Honing the fiery
garage rock
of their debut
album two years
earlier, 2005's
No Wow was as commercial
as The Kills got. The eccentric
drum-machine grooves and
Alison Mosshart’s playground
chants were still there, but
guitarist Jamie Hince’s licks
were more focused, turning
the title track and | Hate The
Way You Love into punchy punk
assaults, which went on to
soundtrack several TV dramas.
Intriguingly, that mainstream
appeal has belatedly been
furthered by a new mix of the
whole album by occasional
associate and The Black Keys
and Pearl Jam producer, Tchad
Blake. Available separately or in
a double-pack with the original,
Blake’s mix loses some of the
duo’s uniqueness, especially
in those trademark rhythms,
but he also overhauls The
Good Ones into steely funk. It
remains a good entry point into
The Kills’ thrillingly dangerous
world. John Earls
Kokomo
To Be Cool: The Rehearsal
Sessions
tototok
Another Planet APM 010 (CD)
Hot stuff from an ultra
cool band
This is the album that never
was for the Brit
all-star soul and
4 funk ensemble.
if These 11 tracks,
recorded live in
the studio in 1974 when they
were struggling for a record
deal, only emerged many years
ater. Here, nearly two decades
further on, they're available
again, an inspired set taking in
Dylan (New Morning), Herbie
Hancock (Chameleon), Bill
Withers (Friend Of Mine) and
more, united by understated
guitar (both the Grease Band’s
Neil Hubbard and Piblokto’s
Jim Mullen), the powerful sax
of Mel (King Crimson) Collins
and contributions from other
luminaries. This 2CD set adds
a previously unheard five-track
demo session from the same
year (not least Robert
Johnson’s Sweet Home
Chicago) and two demos from
a get-together a decade later.
Nick Dalton
Nektar
Sounds Like This
kkk
Esoteric ECLEC 22796 (2CD)
Euro-Brits go Hammond
heavy
Nektar,
four British
progressive
musicians led by
. Roye Albrighton,
had already conquered the
continent from their Hamburg
base by the time their third
album became the first to hit
the home market in 1973. It
was recorded live in the studio
in an attempt to replicate their
impressive shows and emerged
on double vinyl. Yet it has
never been a fan favourite, the
dominant organ resulting in an
atypically heavy sound when
compared with classics A Tab
In The Ocean and Remember
The Future. The bonus disc of
alternate versions and omitted
tracks has appeared in previous
Photos (Al Stewart): Dave Dyke/ Bena; Neville Judd
The Cat Who Got
The Cream
The great British folk-rock troubadour presents his own
archive to the public in one great slab of a boxset.
By David Pollock
Al Stewart
The Admiralty Lights
Heed ‘
Madfish SMABX1141 (LP boxset)
How much Al Stewart does
one listener need? Even the
most strident fan of the great
folk-rock survivor is about to
find out, with this monumental
50-disc vinyl boxset of more
or less his entire recorded
output. It comprises 21 studio albums, from 1967’s
Bedsitter Images (in its 67 and ’70 incarnations) to
2008's Sparks Of Ancient Light, 18 discs of unheard
live recordings spanning four decades, three discs of
BBC sessions from 1965 to 1972, eight records of
outtakes and rarities, and much more.
The relative value of a collection like this depends
on your love of the artist involved, of course. As it’s
limited to 2,000 copies, casual listeners might prefer
to limit themselves to the classic albums Modern
Times or Year Of The Cat, or one of Stewart’s plentiful
greatest hits, while the devoted will pay the asking
price for what is the final word on his storied career.
For the latter bunch, there are many hours of
discovery to be found in the live discs and the offcuts
especially, which are so thoroughly immersive that a
separate catalogue is included, containing credits,
Q&A
From the road in America,
the well-travelled singer-
songwriter reflects on the
unveiling of a mighty back
catalogue.
Does The Admiralty Lights contain every single
recording you’ve made?
It’s about as complete as you're ever going to
get! It covers my entire career, from the earliest
Bournemouth demos, right up to unreleased tracks
from the last album | made, Sparks Of Ancient
Light. It was Snapper Music’s idea to gather it
all together, | didn’t believe it would be possible.
Everyone thought my appearances on John Peel’s
Top Gear were lost for ever, even the BBC — but
here they are.
Does listening to these songs conjure places,
people and performances from the past?
A song will always take you back to a time and a
place. When | look down at the set list and see
Manuscript, I’m transported back to standing
on the beach at Worthing with my grandfather.
REVIEWS
Al Stewart: his
tracklists and
recording details for
each. There’s also
a photograph-heavy
hardback book
which acts as a
detailed biography of
Stewart’s career in
album-by-album format, with quotes
from the artist, his collaborators and
press cuttings of the time.
Think of your favourite artist
and this is exactly the type of all-encompassing
retrospective you want to see. For fans of Stewart,
it’s a chance to re-experience the development
of his career in its rich entirety. Bedsitter Images
itself is a strikingly complete debut, filled with
pastoral, romantic guitar explorations named after
girls, Dylanesque crooning, and ambitious bursts of
brass fanfare, string accompaniment and medieval-
sounding harpsichord.
The follow-up Love Chronicles (1969) is one of
the great backing-group curios in rock, with Jimmy
Page’s plaintive guitar and John Paul Jones’ meaty
bass adding texture to the sex-fascinated title track,
while Fairport Convention’s Richard Thompson, Simon
Nicol and Martin Lamble play throughout. Later, Rick
Wakeman appears on Orange (1972), and alongside
Dave Swarbrick and Queen drummer Roger Taylor on
Surprisingly, many of my most rural songs were
composed in my apartment just off Sunset Strip —
you can’t get a subject more remote from modern
day Los Angeles than a 2,000-year-old Scottish
warrior poet discovered by Robin Williamson of the
Incredible String Band (Merlin’s Time).
Which of these albums do you look on as your
masterpiece?
My favourite in terms of the lyrics, which are
uppermost in my mind when | write, would be Past,
Present And Future; also Year Of The Cat for the
production, and A Beach Full Of Shells because
it’s an album | like a lot. But as for calling anything
I've recorded a ‘masterpiece’, I’d have to get up
very early in the morning to even get within hailing
range of records like Liege & Lief, Revolver and the
second album by The Band.
How do you view Year Of The Cat's title
track now?
I’m very glad | recorded it. I’d always wanted to
come to America and be successful, and it did it for
me. Has it overshadowed everything else? Certainly
not in England, where I’m still seen as a member of
the 60s folk scene. My audience there is incredibly
loyal, I’m very lucky. | can’t go anywhere without
epic new box
set isn’t for
armchair fans
Past, Present And Future (1974).
Stewart’s writing and playing has maintained
a power and consistency ever since, but this latter
album is where his plateau of the 1970s really began
in earnest. Turning away from the lighter concerns of a
1960s folk troubadour, it expanded on his interest in
historical storytelling, grappling with the legacy of the
Second World War on his generation like few other
British songwriters, from The Last Day of June 1934’s
bittersweet reflection on the brief interwar peace,
to Post World War Two Blues and its rock’n’roll-
referencing look at the events of his lifetime.
This album contains arguably his masterpiece,
the eight-minute dissection of the Eastern Front
conflict between the Nazis and the Soviet Army that
is Roads To Moscow, a song which has a bitter tang
of relevance to the world right now. Two years later
in 1976, amid a three-album collaboration with
producer Alan Parsons, the urbane, sophisticated
pop of Year Of The Cat, title track of the album of the
same name, briefly made him a transatlantic star.
being asked to play Roads To Moscow, for example,
the song seems indestructible, and something like
Lord Grenville; the moment | start playing it, boom,
everyone starts applauding. | have a theory why
none of these songs have aged; if you write outside
of your own time, then the songs themselves
somehow become eternal.
Who or what was your greatest inspiration?
Movies, literature, biographies, personal experience
— it’s impossible to select just one. | put them
all in a bucket and stir. Old Admirals came from
reading the 1921 version of (British naval officer)
Jackie Fisher's life, history itself has been incredibly
inspirational. For the lyrics it was Lonnie Donegan’s
wonderful story songs, and for music it was Hank
Marvin and Duane Eddy, who | loved equally. And
of course, Bob Dylan’s influenced every singer-
songwriter out there.
What are you doing now and next?
I’m in the middle of a very intense run of gigs.
Today I’m in Annapolis, Maryland — the land of crab
cakes. I’ve had two years off, so now I’m working
harder than ever. At my age, I’m extremely grateful
to be asked to play.
As told to David Pollock
reissue formats, but Uriah
Heep, Man and Barclay James
Harvest fans could still find this
a worthwhile listen.
Michael Heatley
The Notorious B.1.G.
Life After Death
tokotkk
Rhino/Atlantic 0603497841837
(8LP)
Biggie’s epitaph reborn
Released mere
weeks after he
was killed in a
drive-by
shooting in
March 1997, Brooklyn-born
Christopher Wallace’s second
album was named with eerie
prescience. If his debut, Ready
To Die — in which he’d already
played out a vision of his death
on closing cut Suicidal
Thoughts — hadn’t already
ensured his place in hip hop
legend, Life After Death would
have done so even without the
tragic timing. Befitting Biggie’s
talent and stature, the double-
album is celebrated with a
25th-anniversary deluxe
edition and now spread across
three LPs, with a further five
taking in single edits and other
mixes. It’s hard not to focus on
the album’s obsession with
mortality but, though the
action is heralded by the
sound of a flatline, Life After
Death contains some of the
most vital hip hop of the era.
Slinky professions of prowess
(Hypnotize, Mo Money Mo
Problems), tips for survival
(Ten Crack Commandments)
and ruthless takedowns (Kick
In The Door) leave little room
for doubting Biggie’s place at
rap’s top table but, heard in
the year when he would still
only have been turning 50,
Going Back To Cali has
particular resonance. An olive
branch wrapped in a claim on
the West Coast’s electro-funk
territory, it’s also a sad
reminder of loss in a world that
had more than enough space
for everyone. Jason Draper
Record Collector 99
From The Vaults
PSYCH
COLLECTOR
By JR Moores
The Fab Four never toured in South
America. Instead, a quartet of
imposters from Florida conned their
way over as “The Beetles” in 1964,
while local acts such as Uruguay’s
Los Shakers ordered moptop haircuts
and forged a sound to match. A
different kind of tribute was paid by
the Brazilian pianist Manfredo Fest
and his trio in 1966. Recording as
OS SAMBEATLES, they produced
an LP’s worth of instrumental
Lennon/McCartney compositions
performed in a bossa-nova jazz style.
The originals’ timeless melodies
lent themselves to this form, as
if there was any doubt. They're
the basis around which Fest and
company groove so seductively.
When | finally learn to cook properly
and fulfil my ambition of opening
a feijoada-meets-scouse fusion
bistro, Os Sambeatles (tk He Hk He
Vampisoul) will drift out of the
speakers as you gently tuck into your
fragrant stew.
Why do Eric Clapton and Peter
Green attract all the interest while
Stanley Webb remains a footnote in
English blues rock? So asks Mark
Powell in his sleevenotes to Crying
Won’t Help You Now: The Deram
Years (1971-1974) (te kek
Esoteric). Perhaps it’s because the
band names Fleetwood Mac and
Cream sound cooler than CHICKEN
SHACK. (Less so, Derek And The
Dominos.) There’s no denying,
however, that Mr Webb knew his
way around the neck of a guitar. This
3CD set compiles 1971’s meat-
and-potatoes Imagination Lady,
recorded as a power trio, and its
superior 1973 follow-up Unlucky
Boy, which added horns and strings
to the recipe. The line-up on the
latter record didn’t go on the road,
so it’s another different incarnation
that appears on the third disc’s live
album. Webb thought the Shack
didn’t play particularly well on the
night in question, and he begged
their management not to release the
recording. Chances are, Disc Two will
receive the most spins.
Somewhat quirkier were
SPIROGYRA, who were part of the
Canterbury scene, via Bolton. They
were a zany folk-prog affair whose
wordy narratives necessitated close
attention. They dealt with serious
topics of pressing concern: war,
ee me + | tenet eee lemme ee ~
ee ee ee Bh ae
hunger, materialism, existentialist
woe, exploitative dukes... Yet this
was handled in a playful way that
usually skirted earnestness. Adding
a handful of bonus tracks, The
Future Won’t Be Long: The Albums
(1971-1973) (*& *& *& 4k Esoteric)
hosts the group’s three studio
albums, all of which deserve greater
contemplation than they’ve received
historically.
Lance Barresi and Daniel Hall’s
long-running series of proto-metal
and stoner rarities shows no sign
of running out of motorcycle gas.
Given the nature of the blues-based
genres under documentation, Brown
Acid: The Fourteenth Trip (wx a
RidingEasy) contains the odd
generic number every now and again.
The Legends wear their influences so
openly on their sleeves that, halfway
through Fever Games, they start
namechecking Hendrix and more.
Others come into their own, such as
Trolley Co. whose Signs is possessed
with a lunatic edge. Another
distinctive cut is I’ve Been You which
seems to be the only thing, bar
its B-side, that was ever recorded
by Mijal & White. That’s a shame
because the song is catchy and
delightfully wonky in equal measure.
Furthermore, based on the evidence
here, Blue Creed were fronted by an
actual werewolf. That might explain
why they never played a gig. What if
it fell on a full moon?
This recurrent lack of live activities
is harshing my buzz, so let’s turn to
AVARUS. Recorded in the Dusseldorf
venue that provides its title, Salon
Des Amateurs (* %& %& 4% Pome
Pome Tones) captures a set from
2011 during which the Finnish
collective were joined by American
guitarist Jeffrey Alexander and
German synth player Moritz Kleiner.
Each untitled piece lasts a whole
side of the LP (or cassette, if you’re
that way inclined) and they’re both
about as colourfully abstract as free-
rock gets. For fans of Amon Duul
Il, Faust, Sunburned Hand Of The
Man, No-Neck Blues Band, Jackie-O
Motherfucker, and being pleasurably
confused in an unfamiliar labyrinth.
There’s been a trend for
particularly frantic psych rock over
the last few years, with bands like
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and
Oh Sees churning out prog-length
LPs full of giddy epics at superhuman
rate. Perhaps they’re trying to get
as much done as possible before
the rise of the planet's final tides.
Helsinki’s KALEIDABOLT aren’t as
prolific as the two aforementioned
groups (their last full-length came
out in 2019, the lazy buggers) but
their vibrant style casts similar spells.
It feels as though they’ve worked
a little harder on the choruses and
graspable hooks this time round.
Even so, the emphasis throughout
This One Simple Trick (* *
Svart) remains on cramming as
many ideas as possible into each
sprightly number without pausing
for breath. They rattle through
their multifaceted song structures
and shifting time signatures in
a way that’s irresistibly fun, yet
unfathomably complicated if you
actually stop to think about it.
Similarly energetic are
ECSTATIC VISION who are based in
Philadelphia but have at least one
ear pointed in the direction of Detroit.
As with prior transmissions, Elusive
Mojo (« %& %& %& Heavy Psych
Sounds) is a hoot and then some.
Imagine an MC5/Stooges supertroop,
fronted by Lemmy, with hard-funk-era
Miles Davis as benevolent musical
dictator. The result is... How does the
old saying go? “Mamma mia, that’s a
spicy meatball!”.
Prowler
Reactivate
tothe k
Hear No Evil HNECD 166 (CD)
NWOBHM outfit finally get
to shine
Yet another
; % overlooked
NWOBHM band,
Basildon-based
Prowler are
really only famous for their
contribution to MCA Records’
1980 Brute Force compilation
(recently covered in Please
Release Me), Gotta Get Back
To You. This collection kicks off
with that song, produced by
Chris Tsangarides in July 1980,
and then takes in another
three cuts also recorded by the
legendary producer later that
year. Unsurprisingly, the material
is prime-time NWOBHM, riff-
driven, melodic, and utterly
glorious, and on the basis of
the evidence here they really
should have broken through.
A couple of later re-workings,
a live version of Rocksong
Part II/Heavy from December
1980 and two extremely good
songs recorded when the lads
100 Record Collector
underwent a temporary name-
change to Samurai, complete
this very welcome retrospective.
John Tucker
Nancy Sinatra & Lee
Hazlewood
Nancy & Lee
totkotk tok
Light In The Attic LITA198-1-3 (CD, LP)
The peak of an era-defining
collaboration
It was a
gloriously
unlikely
partnership.
The Marlboro
and Chivas Regal-stenched
cowboy and the little girl lost.
And it resulted in some of the
most oddball hits of the 60s
including ’66 chart-topper
These Boots Were Made For
Walkin’. But it was the contrast
between Nancy's softer low
range and Lee’s gravelly
baritone which created the real
magic. The first of two albums
they made together (the other
appeared in 1972), Nancy &
Lee is a baroque-soaked gem
with horns, harpsichord and
orchestra (conducted by Billy
Strange) embellishing some of
Hazlewood’s greatest songs:
Sand, Summer Wine and the
exquisitely demented Some
Velvet Morning. Charming
covers, too, of Billy Edd
Wheeler’s Jackson and You've
Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’. All in
all, a totally sublime record.
Johnnie Johnstone
Mavis Staples &
Levon Helm
Carry Me Home
tok the tke
Anti- EPIT 27859-2 (CD)
Two greats combine on lost
set from 2011
Recorded before
an audience at
Levon Helm’s
studio in
Woodstock in
2011, a year before Helm died,
Carry Me Home's choice of
material makes for a wonderful
set of gospel, R&B and
blues, including covers of The
Impressions’ This Is My Country,
a cappella gospel on Farther
Along, while the gospel classic
Handwriting On The Wall and
Mississippi Fred McDowell’s
You Gotta Move are taken at
rockabilly pace. Dylan’s Gotta
Serve Somebody is bluesy funk
and the Staples original The
Last Time is performed as a
downhome blues and the set
closes — inevitably — with The
Band’s The Weight complete
with tuba solo from Garth
Hudson. It’s absolutely stunning
stuff. Tony Burke
Suicidal Tendencies
Suicidal Tendencies
tototok
Munster FLP 1011 (LP)
Californian upstarts’
crossover classic
Although highly
influential,
Suicidal
"| Tendencies
eae at | were often
uncomfortable with their
own popularity. They once
disbanded, briefly, after a
dismal tour with Metallica,
whose audience reminded
Mike Muir of the schoolmates
he’d always avoided. The
permanently bandana-ed
singer would also feud with
Megadeth and Rage Against
The Machine, two of many
acts with a debt to his own
band’s fusion of hardcore punk
and heavy metal. The brattish
energy of 1983’s debut is
complemented perfectly by
Muir's sardonic lyrical eye.
He condemns subliminal
advertising, frets about dead-
end jobs and fantasises about
shooting Reagan. It includes
Institutionalized, ST’s timeless
anthem of intragenerational
disconnect. “My parents were
always there for me,” Muir
informed Metal Hammer a
few years ago. “I was very
fortunate.” JR Moores
Sun Ra
Ra To The Rescue
toto tok
Modern Harmonic MH-8822 (CD, LP)
First ever reissue of ultra-
rare jazz recording
A bona fide
rarity in the
back catalogue
of jazz’s own
cosmonaut,
1983’s Ra To The Rescue
in its original limited edition
Saturn pressing came ina
Photo (Nancy & Lee): Ron Joy/Boots Enterprises
hand-coloured cardboard
sleeve with no credits; and
to add to the mystery, it
featured tracks recorded at
different, unspecified sessions.
Copies have exchanged
hands for as much as £400
but now you can get your
hands on a mint pressing
for a fraction of that sum,
thanks to Modern Harmonic,
who are doing a sterling job
in making obscurities from
Ra’s canon widely available.
The music here ranges from
cosmic call-and-response
chants (Children Of The Sun)
and piano-led blues stomps
(Back Alley) to percussive
jams (Drummerlistics), sunny
calypsos (Fate In A Pleasant
Mood) and insane avant-jazz
(the bewitchingly cacophonous
Space Shuttle). A truly
phantasmagorical experience.
Charles Waring
David Sylvian
Sleepwalkers
totokotok
Gronland LPGRON 256 (CD, 2LP)
Sumptuous compilation of
classic collaborations
Originally
released in
2010, these
alliances (from
— Sakamoto to
Nine Horses) and alt-takes
from the 2000s re-emerge,
tweaked, with the previously
unreleased tracks Modern
Interiors (typically stark yet
beautiful) and Do You Know
Me Now? (acoustic, with a rich
melody). Those replace Ballad
Of A Dead Man and Playground
Martyrs. These melancholy
songs — and they are, at
heart, songs rather than sonic
experiments — find the overlap
between his lush romantic work
and his out-there esotericism.
That’s in no way meant as faint
praise: it’s an exquisite treat to
hear that resonant voice moving
with, not against, the flow.
There’s commentary on the real
world too, and even — gosh! -
swearing on the icy heat of the
title track. Chris Roberts
theaudience
theaudience
kkk
Past Night From Glasgow PNFG 29
(2LP)
Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Britpop
years earn reappraisal
“It's
unfashionable,
| guess/To
knock success,”
are Sophie
Ellis-Bextor’s first lines
on A Pessimist Is Never
Disappointed, the opening
and best song on her old band
theaudience’s sole album, from
1998. Now she’s the nation’s
favourite, thoroughly likable
disco mum, it’s easy to forget
her and guitarist Billy Reeves’
indie-pop also-rans from the
tail-end of Britpop. It’s also
pleasing, in light of her recent
successes, to reassess them
in their own right. Their singles
still pack heat, including | Got
The Wherewithal, which fuses
PJ Harvey with French chanson,
and breezy Camdenite glam-
rocker | Know Enough (| Don’t
Get Enough). The production is
occasionally uninspiring,
but the quality of the choruses
and lyrics suggests this was
a group trying hard to be ABBA,
not Sleeper.
David Pollock
Kim Wilde
Kim Wilde
toktok
Cherry Red PCRPOPLP 212 X (LP)
Select
tokk
Cherry Red PCRPOPLP 213 X (LP)
Catch As Catch Can
Cherry Red PCRPOPLP 214 X (LP)
Coloured splatter vinyl
outings for 80s popper
The first three
Kim Wilde
albums witness
her exploding
onto the early
80s pop scene, then trying to
locate her niche. The debut is a
minor classic, her brother and
dad’s songs and production
finding the sweet spot between
new wave’s exhilarated rush
and Kim’s plaintive yet assertive
vocal style. Smash Hits called
it “the best Blondie album for
years”, but what was once
snark now reads as high praise.
Chequered Love is almost as
giddy as Kids From America.
The follow-up, Select, went
more synthy, but on hypnotic
highlight Cambodia played
smartly on latent depths.
Catch As Catch Can deployed
the atypical jazz-swing of Love
Blonde to shunt through some
weird electronic funk. It still
catches a moment.
Chris Roberts
The Wolfhounds
Bright & Guilty
kkk
Optic Nerve OPNCX (2LP)
Indie experimentalists’
special second
The Wolfhounds’
blend of car-
crash Beefheart
guitars, crooked
PEPE =melodies and
rumbling Fall rhythms holds
up well. Like The Nightingales,
appreciation filtered through
belatedly due to the band’s
integrity and perseverance
(they've released three albums
in the last decade). Here on
their second album, which
comes with a second disc
nesting B-Sides and out-takes
including two twisted Kinks
covers (I’m Not Like Everybody
Else and Set Me Free), tracks
such as Non-Specific Song
and Charterhouse (a savage
stab at upper-class privilege)
showcased David Callahan’s
acetous wordplay and Matt
Deighton’s crackling guitar
lines to full advantage, deftly
employing shade and shifting
tempos. Regrettably, despite
occasionally hitting poppier
notes (single Happy Shopper,
Ex-Cable Street) the Essex
chaps often sounded too grimy
and ‘Northern’ to become a
household name.
Johnnie Johnstone
XTC
Mummer
totok tok
Panegyric APELP 106 (LP)
First time on wax since ’86
for post-punkers’ sixth
The latest in
Panegyric’s
faultless
series moves
Mummer's inner
sleeve up front as per Andy
Partridge’s original wishes.
Otherwise, it’s a straightforward
reissue — the master tapes
are long lost, so no chance
of a Steven Wilson remix. If
anything, the no-frills approach
emphasises how extraordinary
1983's Mummer is. The
departure of drummer Terry
Chambers and the decision
to quit touring seemed to
embolden the band — none of
this had to be recreated on-
stage, so why not go for broke?
The result is an album teeming
with unlikely ideas performed
with panache: Beating Of
Hearts’ fusion of Eastern
psych and tribal rhythms; the
relentlessly catchy agrarian pop
prog of Love On A Farmboy’s
Wages; the tense, nightmarish
soundscapes of Deliver Us From
The Elements and trippy dub of
Human Alchemy (both of which
suggest that, at this point, Kate
Bush was the closest Partridge
had to a peer). A welcome
return of a densely packed
and often unfairly overlooked
marvel. Jamie Atkins
VARIOUS
ARTISTS
Bickershaw Festival
50th Anniversary
tok tok
Ozit Morpheus OzitCD 56722 (CD)
Dead, alive in the water
Not even its 50
tracks do justice
to the scale
of this six-disc
set celebrating
Bickerhsaw
Festival, the
May 1972 bash that took place
on a drenched site betwixt
Manchester and Liverpool. Of
28 Grateful Dead workouts
making up their four-hour
set (imagine watching that
while wearing soggy pants), a
Nancy & Lee: although
here they’re actually
Lee & Nancy
mesmeric The Other One tops
30 minutes and five more
top 10. Their set has been
available alone, and as part of
a boxed music’n’book with the
other two discs, but this is the
CD-only debut. Festival cherry-
picks are a wild mix, from The
Kinks (Lola) to the Flamin’
Groovies (Jumping Jack Flash),
Donovan's Catch The Wind to
several by Captain Beefheart
and six from New Riders Of The
Purple Sage. Splendid music
and perfect sound desk quality.
Nick Dalton
Gotta Get A Good
Thing Goin’ - Black
Music In Britain In
The Sixties
tok toto tk
Cherry Red CRJAMBOX 009 (4CD)
Essential overview charting
the influence of Black music
in the UK
Gotta Get A
Good Thing
Goin’ is a
collection that
truly celebrates
the breadth of
black music in
the UK in the 60s. Whereas
one would expect R&B, soul
and ska, it is fascinating to
hear easy listening, rock and
roll and Merseybeat here, too.
With the Windrush Diaspora
rightly enjoying its most positive
representation than at any
point in the past 70 years,
Gotta Get A Good Thing Goin’
is both significant and timely.
Extensively annotated, it is
far, far beyond an arid history
lesson as any compilation with
artists ranging from Cleo Laine
to Clyde McPhatter, Geoff Love
to Laurel Aitken and Shirley
Bassey to Kenny Lynch can
only offer unbounded joy. The
path is surely clear for the same
treatment for the next two
decades? RC is in the queue.
Daryl Easlea
The Rough Guide To
Delta Blues Vol. 2
toktok
World Music RGNET 1417 (CD)
The origins of the blues,
take two
This follow-up to 2017’s initial
volume features Son House’s
Dry Spell Blues,
Skip James’
haunting Cherry
Ball Blues,
Memphis Minnie
and Kansas Joe’s salacious Can
| Do It For You? and Charley
Patton’s growling Shake It And
Break It alongside some lesser
known cuts, such as Tommy
Johnson on Maggie Campbell,
Robert Wilkins’ Rolling Stone
from 1928 and an associate of
Robert Johnson, Willie Brown’s
original of Future Blues — a
Canned Heat staple. Louise
Johnson’s All Night Long in
an outstanding piano blues
take and Mississippi Matilda is
accompanied by husband Sonny
Boy Nelson. The Mississippi Mud
Steppers (actually jug band The
Mississippi Sheiks), meanwhile,
are on toe tapping form on
Vicksburg Storm, while Johnny
Temple signposts the route to
post war Chicago blues. An
enjoyably thorough set.
Tony Burke
Sharayet El Disco
Egyptian Disco & Boogie
Cassettes 1982-1992
toktkk
Wewantsounds WWSLP 60 (LP)
Frankly groovy
eastern floorfillers
Curated by the
Disco Arabesquo
collective,
Sharayet El Disco
is an teeming
banquet of joyous grooves,
offering a glimpse into how
disco developed in the Middle
East, enabled by the burgeoning
of cheap cassette technology.
Among the highlights are Dr.
Ezzat abou Ouf & el four M’s
Genoun el Disco, which has
a primitive beatbox puttering
away while the melody line
freely snaffles Dance In The
Old Fashioned Way and Love
Is In The Air. Hazeny by Al
Massrieen is a blast — falling
somewhere between Boney M
and the Blockheads — and is
about how music can shake
your soul; and Youm wi Lilah by
Firkit Americana Show, which
iS a jazzed-up interpretation of
The Girl From Ipanema, brings
a degree of nonchalance to
proceedings. Daryl Easlea
\
Record Collector 101
Radiohead offshoot conjure up radiant debut.
By Jamie Atkins
A Light For Attracting Attention
XL XL 1196 (CD, 2LP)
What's in a name? The Smile is a new band
comprising Radiohead’s creative engine room —
Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood — and Sons Of
Kemet drummer Tom Skinner, produced by the
sixth Radiohead member, Nigel Godrich.
By today’s standards, it wouldn’t have been
beyond the pale for The Smile to trade under the
Radiohead name. Pink Floyd are releasing new
music with one founder member and the guitarist
who joined after their glory years. Let’s not get
started on the line-up of wacky-shirted uncles
who pass as most of The Beach Boys. And the
current East 17 line-up features backing singer/
bad boy Terry, along with a couple of Johnny Come
Latelys presumably recruited from a local hard
man agency. Still, if there’s anything the last few
decades have taught us, it’s that Radiohead are
very much not East 17.
Making a new start as The Smile feels like a
way for Yorke, Greenwood and Godrich to work
together without the pressure and expectations
that come with a new Radiohead album. Not
only that, but getting the band together would’ve
been a logistical nightmare considering the events
of the past few years. Indeed, Greenwood told
NME back in September, “The Smile came about
from just wanting to work on music with Thom in
lockdown. We didn’t have much time, but we just
wanted to finish some songs together. It’s been
very stop-start, but it’s felt a happy way to make
music.” Meanwhile, introducing the jazz-honed
percussive prowess of Skinner into the mix gives
the long-term collaborators a chance to spice
up their relationship, one unexpected time
signature at a time.
The decision has paid off. A Light For Attracting
Attention feels like an album that exists on its own
terms, made for the right reasons. Imaginative
arrangements and instrumentation abound, as if a
shake-up of personnel and working methods has
given the musicians license to stray from well-worn
paths with unexpected and often glorious results.
Opening track The Same begins in ominous
fashion: warped, pulsing synth stabs; one of those
drifting, near-slurred Yorke melodies; a feeling of
slow-building tension. Where that strain might
break in explosive fashion on a Radiohead album,
here it’s allowed to rise to an almost unbearable
level, with layers of circling guitar, nightmarish
strings and distortion. Until suddenly, its abrupt end
makes it feel like a troubled prelude, rather than a
grandstanding opener.
The Opposite kicks in with an irresistible,
begging-to-be-sampled clipped groove from
Skinner. Guitars pile in playing a sort of spidery
funk, Yorke is in sarky, bullish mode (“Can we
have the next contestant please”) over a haunting
choir of his own backing vocals. It’s a fantastically
twitchy, Can-like expression of the freedom The
Smile gives these musicians.
Next up, the blistering garage rock of You Will
Never Work In Television Again blasts things wide
open with glee. Greenwood seems to have found a
box of pedals lost around the time of recording No
Surprises B-Side Palo Alto and Yorke’s vocals are a
102 Record Collector
deliciously belligerent howl (“You sad fuck/You throw
small change/Take your dirty hands off my love”
indeed). Anyone who’s spent decades yearning
for the guitar rock Radiohead mostly abandoned
around 1995, look away — they could do it all the
time, they were just playing with ya.
Pana-Vision changes the mood instantly. A
piano loop reminiscent of Greenwood’s soundtrack
to Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2017 film Phantom
Thread provides the foundations for a cinematic
epic. Again, Yorke is in fantastic vocal form, proving
his angelic falsetto is very much intact before letting
rip as strings and horns swell around him.
The Smoke acts as a palate cleanser, less of a
song and more of a vehicle for an ingenious, supple
bassline. Which is more than enough, it turns out.
Yorke adds a neat juxtaposition with dreamy vocals,
but less is more here.
Speech Bubbles slows things back down,
beginning with Yorke cooing beautifully over spare
percussion and drone-like organ, before Greenwood
arpeggios like it’s In Rainbows all over again and all
is right with the world. It’s another example of the
inventive arrangements that contribute towards the
album's success. Similarly, the math rock frenzy of
Thin Thing may be one of the least striking tracks
here but there’s still plenty to enjoy in its energy
and dub-like effects on Yorke’s vocals.
It wouldn’t be a Radiohead-affiliated album
without the snazzing up of a near-mythical track —
enter Open The Floodgates. First played by Thom
at an Atoms For Peace soundcheck in 2006 and
revisited a handful of times in 2009, what was a
slow-moving, fairly unremarkable piano song has
been transformed into something sublime, with
layers of pulsing electronic bleeps flitting around
Yorke’s powerful vocal like woozy fireflies.
The stunning Free In The Knowledge follows
suit: Yorke’s vocals are Exit Music-intimate as he
goes for the emotional jugular with one of his most
direct songs in many years. A special mention, too,
for the swoonsome string arrangement, another
example of Greenwood’s enormously successful
sideline as a soundtrack composer influencing his
main gig.
The skittering, frenetic A Hairdryer breaks up
the beauty nicely before the meandering Waving A
White Flag offers more in the way of string-soaked
filmic heaviness. We Don’t Know What Tomorrow
Brings is a thrilling post-punk juggernaut. Still,
this clutch of songs feel less vital than those that
preceded them, as if they were a warm-up for the
closing track.
Skrting On The Surface was performed live
by Yorke back in 2009 and revived by Radiohead
in 2012. While the full band live versions feel
ponderous and claustrophobic, here it’s an elegiac
wonder. Again, it has the warmth of In Rainbows,
but adds a bucolic string arrangement and free-
sounding horns to hypnotic effect.
Far more than an indulgent side project, A Light
For Attracting Attention deserves to be taken on its
own merits as a daring, invigorating and often very
moving piece of work in its own right. Its genre-
hopping, musically curious approach has effectively
given The Smile free reign to do whatever they
please should they reconvene, and the material will
make for some stunning live shows. It should also
give those involved a sense of renewed purpose
when it comes to the next Radiohead project,
whenever that may appear. For now, though, The
Smile can stay another day.
Photo (The Smile): Alex Lake
REVIEWS
The Smile: Mmm,
that’s more of a
grimace, actually “i
Intctoroyco lk @fe)l areca ROK}
s.
New Albums
Out
Branchin
Victory lap, or onwards march? Prog brainiacs
return with options open. By Kevin Harley.
Porcupine Tree
Closure/Continuation
kkkk*k
Music For Nations 19439956901 (CD/CD/Blu-Ray, 2LP)
Over a long decade for close followers of Porcupine
Tree, something was ticking away behind frontman
Steven Wilson’s evasive interview manoeuvres. While
Wilson equivocated on Porcupine Tree’s future, he
was busily amassing an archive of slow-burning
collaborations with drummer Gavin Harrison. As
lockdown bit hard, Wilson, Harrison and keyboardist
Richard Barbieri worked these fragments and more
into collaborative songs, with the band’s defining
impetus guiding the way: always recognisably
themselves, always determinedly different.
That combination is slickly channelled into the
teasingly titled — old habits — Closure/Continuation
(or C/C). With bassist Colin Edwin out, the band
have reconvened in a new collaborative formation
as a limber power trio, refreshed by sundry solo
and extra-curricular adventures. Veering between
encapsulations of a well-travelled career and open
doors (potentially) to future options, the result
perhaps misses the conceptual cogency of earlier
Tree peaks. But it doesn’t want for controlled reach.
Over a tight 48 minutes, C/C weds a reinvigorated
affirmation of band identity to expansive energies, all
to confident effect: “The sum of all, of new and old,”
as Wilson’s lyrics put it.
Initial evidence of change arrives with Harridan,
where Wilson’s slapped funk bass heralds bold gear-
shifts even as the Porcupine Tree imprint clarifies.
Barbieri’s limpid washes of Blade Runner-ish synth
atmospherics and Wilson’s crashing guitars occupy
Q&A
Keyboard wizard Richard
Barbieri unpacks a freshly
collaborative
resurrection...
Your last show was 12 years back. Did you
anticipate such a long break?
It was a growing surprise. | expected there would
be a break of a couple of years and | presumed
we'd carry on. But Steven wanted to embark on
a solo career. It slowly became apparent. It’s like
detective work. | only just discovered recently
that Steven and Gavin were working together in
2011-12, on ideas. At one point | left it behind
emotionally, left the whole thing and forgot about
it. | made solo albums. Then around 2017,
2018, | became more involved. When we got to
lockdown, everything accelerated and we knew it
was a Porcupine Tree album. It was unmistakably
us. It had the DNA.
You had your solo career. Did you have
any reservations about reforming or did it
feel natural?
Wy track entitled
Let It Be Blue There’s No
kkk Fucking Rules,
Warp WARPLP 339 (CD, LP)
Clutter-free funk from
Sacramento scenesters
Back in 2000, !!!’s self-
titled debut contained a
104 Record Collector
Dude. If ever
a group had
a mission statement, it was
that. Although they have
been in the indie mainstream
shared
space, held
in tense,
heavy and
flexible
formation. Meanwhile, Harrison’s cardiac-routine
rhythm work summons hammering grandeur and
nimble grooves in equal measure; close your eyes
and you can picture Thom Yorke wobbling his head
in approval.
A more melodic bent buoys up Of The New Day,
a careworn single giving Wilson’s Floyd love full rein.
If echoes of Lightbulb Sun or Stupid Dream also
resonate, the result stands as a rarefied take on
such, with an airy sense of graceful resilience that —
though it predates lockdown — will surely connect with
lockdown-bruised listeners.
In Absentia is a closer cousin to Rats Return,
whose stop-start riff contortions mount revitalised
nods to earlier prog-metal PTree highs. While Wilson’s
lyrics bristle with bile, the song’s knotty convolutions
hold their own between modern math-rock
experimenters such as Black Midi and veteran prog
practitioners such as Rush. Talking of whom, an Alex
Lifeson-esque guitar break opens Dignity, another
song that brings to mind Wilson’s solo work (notably,
Hand. Cannot. Erase.) in its empathy for lost souls
in the city.
It felt quite natural. | think they had more
reservations about reconvening with me, possibly.
Not in a musical sense but in a sense that the
last tour we did wasn’t great. We were touring too
much. We’d made an album that for the first time
didn’t feel like a move forwards. It was plateau-ing.
So | was keen to make another. | didn’t want it left
with that album and | didn’t want it left with that
tour. My motivation was to make a great album
and to have a tour where we're all friends.
The album is your most collaborative. Was that
an organic development or a mandate?
It was a mandate, really, from Steven. He saw no
point after having written five or six solo albums
to turning up and saying, right, here’s 90 per cent
of the material. It’s the most I’ve been involved
with the writing, production and presentation.
And it’s the first Porcupine Tree album that just
features three people. It distils it down to the core
of the band.
Is Chimera’s Wreck a gift to the fans? It’s the
most prog track here...
When | first heard it, | was like, This is like
something from the 7Os. But there is always that
element lurking around the corner in our music. It
for two and a half decades
now, !!! (pronounced Chk
Chk Chk) still feel fresh. Their
ninth album, Let /t Be Blue,
still continues that mission,
combining minimalism,
electro-pop, dance-punk and
impeccable grooves.
Let It Be Blue is
possibly the most focused
the group have been.
With the acoustic ‘Laurel
Canyon amuse-bouche’
Normal People to open, the
following 37 minutes are
full of handsomely terse
Porcupine Tree: a reunion more
successful than this photo suggests
Darker twists on modern anxieties shape Herd
Culling, which evokes Wilson’s fascination with film
in its ominous horror-movie lyrics. Between lights in
the sky, scratching at the doors and curses on the
land, the sense of apocalyptic interior dread oozes a
kind of miasmic gloom not many miles removed from
Radiohead’s Climbing Up The Walls.
The reference points for Walk The Plank come
from closer to home. Continuing the turn away from
guitars that distinguished Wilson’s The Future Bites
(2020), the song’s mix of queasy atmospherics and
experimental electronics also marks fresh territory
by foregrounding Barbieri’s unmistakably ambient
imprint. Finally, Chimera’s Wreck extends a gift to the
old-guard fans in its embrace of the prog-epic jugular,
building incrementally through acoustic passages and
offbeat time signatures to further echoes of Rush’s
influence — if the riffs are Lifeson-esque, the bubbling
basslines honour Geddy Lee’s fleet-fingered example.
Perhaps most pertinently, Wreck’s lyrics meditate
on change, age and legacy, all issues that circle this
most confident of comeback/farewell albums. “We
can still find there’s a future in tomorrow,” sings
Wilson, ever the tease. Do Porcupine Tree have a
future after their upcoming tour? No one involved
knows, but the lingering question seems clear. When
the suggestion of closure is this strong, how could
continuation not be in consideration?
is a prog epic, isn’t it?
There’s a sense of anticipation surrounding
this album. Did you get a sense of that
building while the band were away?
| was kind of aware. Probably Steven was most
aware because his fanbase were constantly
reminding him that they wanted him to make
another. And because of the sheer body of work
that we've created, and the quality, | think a lot of
young people started to get into the band. In some
places, they’re crazy for us. We sold 9,000 tickets
in an hour in Chile. And these are kids. They’re not
going to be old prog-heads.
The title is deliberately ambiguous. Do you
feel it would be a shame to call closure, given
that you’re on such form?
We don’t know. Any decision on finishing
something is always done quite quickly, isn’t it,
on the spur of the moment. | think either way, we
can’t lose. We were determined to have a great
time and make this fun. We’ve made what we
think is one of our best albums. If we call it a
day, we’ll be quite satisfied. But we’re leaving
the door open.
As told to Kevin Harley
funk. The hands-in-the-air
daftness of Panama Canal
is a standout and recasting
R.E.M.’s Man On The Moon
as some lost Ze Records/no-
wave outtake goes beyond
gimmick and works incredibly
well. Daryl Easlea
All Them Witches
Live On The Internet
tokk
New West LPNW 5589 (2CD, 3LP)
Lockdown but not out:
Nashville rockers prevail
Ei . After the
| under-powered
ATW (2018),
Nashville’s
. # sulphurous
psych-rockers rediscovered
their reach on Nothing As
The Ideal (2020). As Covid
curtailed album touring
plans, the quartet-turned-
trio occupied a studio to
broadcast that ready-to-go
fervour online for lockdown-
atomised fans. Out on
vinyl, the result is a broiling
declaration of dynamism
and determination from
gig-starved rock lifers,
kickstarted imposingly by
the Bonzo-esque bludgeon,
expansive riffs and vocal
declamations of Blood And
Sand/Milk And Endless
Waters. Elsewhere, Witches
buffet on the Sabbath-
indebted Dirt Preachers,
burn slow on Saturnine And
lron Jaw and dredge up
something primordial for the
sludgy mysticism of 1X1. If
Rats In Ruin overreaches
for the epic, Enemy Of My
Enemy finds Witches in
their stoner-rock element,
churning out monster riffs
in a spirit of pronounced
indomitability. Kevin Harley
Bangs & Talbot
Back To Business
tok
Acid Jazz AJX 640 (CD, LP)
Funk DJ and Style
Councillor team up
a ] The DJ/
producer
who coined
the term
“acid jazz,”
Chris Bangs is also a
percussionist, an able foil
for The Style Council/Dexys
keyboardist Mick Talbot’s first
non-sessioneewwr album
since he was in OOs funk
supergroup The Players. Bar
a chintzy cover of Marvin
Gaye’s How Sweet It Is,
the duo create their own
energetic instrumentals.
A couple of tracks tip into
genre stereotypes: Leela’s
Dance and Kookie T could be
from a cheesy spy film spoof.
Mostly, Bangs & Talbot spur
each other on to showing
tough musicianship and
frantic riffing. Surf’N’Turf and
Stingray — the latter recorded
in front of an appreciative
Californian club crowd — are
tight funk workouts worthy of
any DJ’s attention.
Occasionally missing
a vocalist, mostly a lively
adventure from scene
evergreens.
John Earls
Brandon Coleman
Black Interstellar Space
tok tok
Brainfeeder BFDNL101 (CD, LP)
Keyboard cosmonaut’s
third album puts the fun
back into funk
Dubbed
“Professor
Boogie”
by Kamasi
+ me Washington,
whose band he’s played in
for several years, Coleman
is a self-taught keyboardist
from Los Angeles whose
stock has been on the
rise since Resistance,
his 2018 debut for Flying
Lotus’ Brainfeeder label.
His latest opus reflects
the keyboardist’s long-
time enthusiasm for sci-fi
movies set in space and
offers the sonic equivalent
of a meditation on the vast
expanse of nothingness
where “no one can hear
you scream,” although
there’s nothing scary
about Coleman’s joyous
cache of vocoder-led astral
funk influenced by Herbie
Hancock and Parliament.
Among the standouts are
the two-part We Change,
featuring Kamasi Washington
and trumpeter Keyon
Harrold; On The One, a
chunk of Prince-like synth
funk; and the lush Say
When. Cosmic, man.
Charles Waring
Steve Earle
Jerry Jeff
tok kon
New West CDNW 6534 XIE (CD, LP)
Country maverick takes a
=| another on
a B Jerry Jeff, Earle
in his best good humour
singing the songs of Jerry
Jeff Walker — in effect the
third of a trilogy honouring
his heroes following albums
devoted to Townes Van Zandt
and Guy Clark.
This is anything but a
poignant reflection on a great
songwriter; instead it echoes
Walker’s freewheeling, smile-
flashing style, a party rather
than a tribute. Kicking off
with Gettin’ By and quickly
followed by Gypsy Songman,
Walker’s spirit is everywhere,
Earle’s band the Dukes
walking in the footsteps of
his own hard-hitting combo,
the Gonzo Compadres.
And yet everything is
turned on its head with Mr
Bojangles, Walker’s much-
covered classic, which gets
a moving, soulful treatment
here, accompanied by
swathes of fiddle and
squeezebox.
Nick Dalton
ie.
7 ~
~
f
Liam Gallagher: take your coat
off, love, or you won’t feel the
benefit when you go out
George Ezra
Gold Rush Kid
tokk
Columbia 19439984121
(CD, LP, Cassette)
Singer-songwriter
continues stadium rise
] When Herts-
raised George
Ezra emerged
in 2015, the
world didn’t
exactly need another Home
Counties singer-songwriter.
Ezra stood out by crafting
escapist breezy pop, rather
than joining his peers’ dreary
contest to see who could
be the most earnest. Many
would still struggle to pick
Ezra out in a line-up, but
undeniable bangers such as
Shotgun led him to headline
stadiums, and the first half
of Ezra’s third album has the
same winning catchiness:
don’t be surprised if Manila
and the self-satirising title
track also attain radio
ubiquity. Unfortunately, the
second side is dominated by
the moon-faced balladry Ezra
usually rises above. Love
Somebody Else has a classy
Hall & Oates-y sheen, but
it’s surrounded by winsome
platitudes. A solid bronze,
rather than gold standard.
John Earls
Liam Gallagher
C’mon You Know
kk
Warners 0190296423932 (CD, LP)
He is the resurrection
Gallagher
Jnr’s third solo
album adds
some self-
proclaimed
“weird shit” to the square
meal rock’n’roll that has
helped him, to everyone’s
surprise, outstrip his big
brother. Everything is
relative — he hasn’t pivoted
to drill music — but there
is the odd curveball:
reflective opener More
Power, with its children’s
choir, sounds like The
Flaming Lips covering You
Can’t Always Get What You
Want; Vampire Weekend’s
Ezra Koenig co-writes the
noirish Moscow Rules; The
Beatles’ influences are more
psychedelic than ever on It
Was Not Meant to Be and
Better Days (essentially
Tomorrow Never Knows).
Otherwise, it’s as you were
(sorry) with sweet ballads
(Too Good For Giving Up) and
polished rock (Everything’s
Electric) that will fit in nicely
between Oasis classics at
Liam’s Knebworth second
coming. Shaun Curran
Heldon
Antelast
tokkk
Bam Balam BBRP 091 (CD, LP)
Avant-rockers going
out with a bang
Heldon’s initial
run occurred
in the 70s.
Listening
to those
recordings today, the French
group’s freewheeling mixture
of distorted guitar licks,
weighty synth wobbles and
lively drumbeats still sounds
futuristic. Their leader,
Richard Pinhas, is now in his
seventies. Although he keeps
threatening to wind things
down, both archive releases
and fresh material keeps
on coming. Recorded live in
2019 with younger members
Arthur Narcy and Florian
Tatard, Antelast will be
REVIEWS
Heldon’s final transmission...
unless it isn’t. Divided into
five movements, the set is
often propelled frantically by
its energetic and hard-hitting
rhythm section, as Pinhas
riffs, noodles and spiralises
on top. Interspersed are
mellower, breath-catching
moments. But you never
have to wait long before
another blast-off. JR Moores
Hercules And
Love Affair
In Amber
kk
Skint/BMG 4050538788365
(CD, 2LP)
Dance musician reunites
with Anohni and goes goth
On his alias’
self-titled
2008 debut,
New York DJ
Andy Butler
offered one of the decade’s
most celebrated dance
singles: the ferocious Blind,
featuring Anohni. Reunited
on the first Hercules And
Love Affair album in five
years, the pair have a whole
new vibe. Contempt For You
has the unsettling fury of
Associates’ darker moments,
a mood continued in the
tracks Butler sings, in a goth
rumble recently echoed in
Fontaines D.C. Handbag
house it most definitely isn’t,
with Banshees/Creatures
drummer Budgie enhancing
the melodramatic rhythms.
The intensity of Butler’s rage,
and his innate way with a
beat, keep the songs from
becoming too histrionic,
sometimes colliding with
industrial rock so that the
pacy Christian Prayers is a
thrilling Nine Inch Nails-alike.
John Earls
Record Collector 105
New Albums
Divine Perfection
US singer-songwriter’s sixth studio album raises
the bar. By Jamie Atkins
Angel Olsen
Big Time
tok A
Jagjaguwar JAG 424 CD (CD, 2LP, Cassette
Angel Olsen described her last album proper,
2019's All Mirrors, as an “angry record”.
Steeped in icy synthesisers and spectral
strings and set to cold drum machines, it had
a seething drama matched by the turbulence
and frustration of the lyrics. Big Time finds
the St Louis-raised singer-songwriter perform an
about-turn to deliver a set informed by lush country
and hushed folk with lyrics that veer between self-
acceptance, grief, emotional exhaustion and optimism.
The songs on Big Time deal with the fall-out from
a period in Olsen’s personal life that left her reeling.
After a period of coming to terms with her sexuality,
she finally came out to her parents. “Finally, at the
ripe old age of 34, | was free to be me,” she writes
in Big Time’s press release. But any feeling of relief
was short-lived — her father died three days later. Two
weeks after the funeral, her mother was admitted to
the ER and didn’t return. Just three weeks after
her mother’s service, Olsen spent a month in
Topanga Canyon recording Big Time with producer
Jonathan Wilson.
“1 can’t say that I’m sorry/When | don’t feel so
wrong anymore,” begins opener All The Good Times, a
slow-burning country-soul gem flecked with Stax horns
and heartbroken-sounding pedal steel. It’s a strong
opener sung with controlled power. The title track is
another tip of the hat towards Nashville, a weepy waltz
giddy with new love.
The eerie beauty of Dream Thing appears to find
Olsen reflecting on past relationships in the light of
her recent experiences, set to a shimmering and
melodramatic musical backing that would’ve done Roy
Orbison proud. The defiant Ghost On follows (“I can’t
fit into the past you’re used to/I refuse to”), another
suggestion that Olsen found comfort in classic country
during hard times.
Angel Olsen on mining
the emotional depths on
her startling new record.
ANOTHER
PHOTO?
In Dream Thing you refer
to a “waste of fear.” Did the events of your
personal life inspire a creative fearlessness
when it came to the making of Big Time?
I’m not really sure, but when | say “waste of fear”
in the song — |’m referring to someone spending
too long a time holding a grudge, out of fear,
out of ego.
Big Time feels like a warm, soulful record.
Did you purposely set out to make it sound
so different to All Mirrors?
| guess everything | make is a little different
The string-soaked
survival ballad All The
Flowers showcases Olsen’s
dramatic vocal range:
think Karen Dalton backed
by Fantasia strings and
you're some of the way
there. It’s followed by the
show-stopping Right Now,
a swooning country power
ballad that improbably
takes a turn into psych-
Beatles territory, all heavy
descending strings.
This Is How It Works is
another countrified gem
that finds Olsen mining
uncanny beauty from
emotional exhaustion. “I’m
so tired of being tired,”
she sings. You believe her.
There’s conviction,
too, in the plain-speaking
Go Home. Olsen belts out
the stirring chorus with the desperation of somebody
helpless in the tumult of tragedy: “I wanna go home/
Go back to small things/I don’t belong here/Nobody
knows me.”
Elsewhere, Walk Through The Fire is such
an exquisitely doomy-sounding torch song that
presumably David Lynch is writing a film about it as we
on her new record
from the previous release. I’m usually trying new
things because it’s what inspires me for a time.
| listened to a lot of 70s country and rock during
the pandemic. When | went to look for producers,
| thought someone who would understand the
minimalism needed for these songs, someone
who'd just let them be what they are might be best.
Might be the most radical thing | could do.
Were there any albums that were especially
influential on the sound of Big Time?
Neil Young’s On The Beach, Fleetwood Mac always,
Dolly Parton just because I’m a woman, Dusty
Springfield, Big Star, Lucinda Williams.
It feels like there’s a lot of reflection on past
relationships, personal and professional —
All The Good Times, Dream Thing etc. Have
you found the clarity you needed to address
sensitive subjects in song?
Ponte Olsen: having it large
speak. And Chasing The Sun is a stunning way for Big
Time to finish, its lovestruck and content lyrics
(“I can’t seem to get anything done with someone like
you around/Everyone’s wonderin’ where I’ve gone —
having too much fun”) set to sumptuously sad music
to bittersweet effect, like Olsen’s very own Somewhere
Over The Rainbow.
Yes and no — people are weird! But | have found
peace with those circumstances without needing
clarity from someone else.
Chasing The Sun ends things on a lyrically
hopeful note but the music feels exquisitely
sad. Do you enjoy that sort of juxtaposition?
Well, when you're falling in love in a real way, |
think you kind of feel open, or a little sad at the
thought of losing the feeling if you want it so much.
| think the same thing can happen with a lot of old
country songs: you listen to them at first and they
sound upbeat until you hear the words sometimes.
And they're a little funny. Kinda like when you’ve
been so sad you've actually learned how to laugh
more when you retell your story. Comedians are
some of the saddest people. You have to endure
a lot to laugh that much. Any time something bad
happens to me | like to say, “I’m just learning how
to laugh deeper.” As told to Jamie Atkins
Horsegirl Chicago’s
Versions Of Modern thriving
Performance underage
Matador OLE 1846 LPE 2 (CD, LP) a DIY scene,
tot 1] Horsegirl are
Thrilling debut from the
Windy City trio
The first breakout group of
106 Record Collector
barely out of school but belie
their young years on Versions
Of Modern Performance, a
layered, atmospheric, darkly
playful headrush of a first
offering. Their basement-
dwelling writing process adds
a scuzziness to the strong
post-punk/early 90s US alt-
rock vibe (see the buzzing
riff of Anti-Glory) but it’s the
guitar soundscapes and pop
harmonies a la My Bloody
Valentine and Stereolab
that elevate tracks such
as Billy and World Of Pots
And Pans into something
truly special. Add in some
idiosyncratic, impressionistic,
at times surreal lyrical
character studies that take
in themes of friendship and
youthful lust, often set to an
imagined life in the suburbs,
and you’ll do well to hear a
better guitar-based debut all
year. Shaun Curran
REVIEWS
Interpol
The Other Side Of
Make-Believe
Matador OLE 1875 LP (CD, LP)
kkk
New York trio let ina
little light
For 20 years,
NYC’s Interpol
have searched
for ways to
alter the shade
of their monochromatic,
elegiac rock: a dignified,
if not always successful
pursuit. This lightly envelope-
pushing seventh album
finds that elusive new sweet
spot in bringing to the fore
a somewhat alien concept:
hope. With the help of super
producer Flood, the band
used lockdown distance
to change up their jam-
the-songs-out approach,
letting some light through
the cracks. Daniel Kessler’s
guitar lines remain inventively
distinctive, but a gentleness
now exudes from Paul Banks’
voice, and his pseudo-
absurdist lyrics consider that
things might not be so bad
after all. It plays into the
music: anthemic highlights
Fables and Passenger have a
stately, optimistic air. “Still in
shape, my methods refined,”
goes opener Toni, and how
true it proves. Shaun Curran
Leyla McCalla
Breaking The
Thermometer
kt
ANTI- 279121 (CD, LP)
Americana mainstay
honours Haitian rebel folk
Mixing archival
recordings
with fertile,
shape-shifting
original songs
and compositions, this
exploratory album from
Haitian-American cellist and
multi-instrumentalist Leyla
McCalla aims a spotlight
on the radical Radio Haiti.
A university commission
compelled the former
Carolina Chocolate Drop
and Our Native Daughters
player to dig deep into
the independent station’s
archives from 1957-2003;
there, McCalla finds the
impetus for bracingly enriched
story-songs of resistance
and resilience, spirit and
selfhood. Creole folk rubs
shoulders with vibrant
melodies, insistent rhythms
and political laments,
nurtured to fruition between
McCalla’s research and
her reflections on her own
identity. With brisk protest
song Dodinin, the lovely Dan
Reken and the lilting Pouki
among the standouts, the
result is a haunting, heartfelt
immersion in Haitian history,
fully invested and alive with
poignancy and power.
Kevin Harley
Delbert McClinton
Outdated Emotion
tokkk
Hot Shot HSR 0031 (CD, LP)
Back to the future, Lone
Star-style
This Americana
lark is second
nature to
grizzled Texan
McClinton.
Now in his early 80s, he
recently retired from touring
and this 16-track collection
reconnects him to the songs
that inspired him as a teen.
Kicking off with Lloyd Price’s
Stagger Lee, he works his
way through an alternative
American Songbook, and
the result will delight anyone
whose path he’s crossed
over the years. Whether
intoning over honky-tonk
piano for Amos Milburn’s
One Scotch, One Bourbon,
One Beer or frolicking with
fiddles on Hank Williams’
Jambalaya, McClinton proves
his talents endure. By the
time he closes with the brief,
humorous Call Me A Cab — “I
can’t listen to this shit any
more,” he groans — you wish
he’d start all over again.
Michael Heatley
Van Morrison
What’s It Gonna Take?
kk
Exile/Virgin 4549777 (CD, 2LP)
Still Van the Manifesto...
ez" According to
“Sup track 12 of 15,
j Van Morrison,
we fen “Ain't no
celebrity... and
don’t care if you agree.”
You'd think maybe he’s
trying to put controversy to
bed, given recent conspiracy
theory headlines — but if
you reach that point, you’ve
already consumed an entire
manifesto. He takes issue
with his detractors from the
start, the one-chord organ-
fuelled groove of Dangerous
underpinning self-justifying
lyrics. Track two, What’s
It Gonna Take, swings at
politicians; Fighting Back
Is The New Normal derides
“fence sitters”. This once
elegantly enigmatic lyricist
has become the ranting
uncle in the corner.
Much of the music here
is sumptuous R&B, but if Van
is intent on exercising his
right to freedom of speech
he may find many choosing
to tune out. Michael Heatley
Graham Nash
Live
tokotkok
Proper Records PRPCD 161
(CD, LP)
Solo, and proud of it
Not just a live set, this
21-track
release is a
celebration
of Nash’s 50
years as a solo
artist (a career often rudely
interrupted by CSNY’s own
erratic path). Here, Nash
plays his first two albums,
1971’s Songs For Beginners
and Wild Tales (1973), in
their entirety on a 2019 tour
not only with his usual crew
— guitarist Shane Fontayne
and former CSN keyboard
player Todd Caldwell — but
with pedal steel, sax and
backing singers.
Some songs, notably
a bunch from his debut,
are favourites Nash has
continued to play regularly
— Simple Man, Military
Madness, | Used To Be A
King, Chicago — while others
are less performed; some,
apparently, not at all. The
sound is warm and rich and
Nash’s plaintive vocals soar
above everything loud and
clear. Nick Dalton
Klaus Schulze
Deus Arrakis
tok kk
SPV 16246151886922461514
(CD, 3LP)
Dune-inspired brilliance
from late musician
Klaus Schulze’s
recent
death was
unexpected,
and if Deus
Arrakis turns out to be his
swansong — which is likely —
then it’s a fitting conclusion to
a remarkable career, bringing
things full circle. This is a sequel
to the imaginary soundtrack
to Dune that the German
electronic pioneer made back in
1979, where he enlisted Arthur
Graham Nash: he booked
a decent act for his 50th
anniversary celebrations.
Himself
“The God of Hellfire” Brown
to sing operatic glossolalia,
was one of his masterpieces,
and four decades later, Hans
Zimmer asked Schulze to
make a cameo on his own
Academy Award-winning score.
Inspired, Schulze rolled back
the decades and recorded this
companion piece: Deus Arrakis
iS aS ambient and abstract
as much of the kosmische
legend’s work, creating more an
ethereal mood than a narrative
which, given his sad passing,
becomes a kind of ceremonial
synth sepulture. Jeremy Allen
John Scofield
John Scofield
ECM 2727 (CD)
Veteran jazz guitarist goes
it alone
With its acerbic
tone and bluesy,
»| bittersweet
inflections,
: Scofield’s
fretboard sound is instantly
recognisable and over the
last 50 years has been heard
in myriad different musical
contexts, from spacey avant-
jazz to riotous jam band funk
and every style in between. This
new album is the 70-year-old’s
first dedicated solo guitar record
of his career and truly captures
the essence of his unique
approach to his instrument. The
album’s material — veering from
jazz standards (It Could Happen
To You) and traditional songs
(Danny Boy) to ear-catching
versions of Buddy Holly’s Not
Fade Away and Hank Williams’
You Win Again — reflects the
Ohio-born musician’s eclectic
array of influences. Impressive,
too, are several striking self-
penned tunes, which range
from the hard-swinging, bop-
tinged Elder Dance to the
gentle Mrs Scofield’s Waltz. A
satisfyingly intimate encounter.
Charles Waring
Shearwater
The Great Awakening
tok tok
Polyborus PLBR O01 (CD, 2LP)
Artful birder’s still waters
run deep
about birds,
oad Bowie tributes,
: Bandcamp
releases and
Brian Eno collaborations,
Shearwater’s deep, dreamy
comeback album The
Great Awakening marks a
homecoming for mainman
Jonathan Meiburg. Certainly,
it cleaves closer to the serene
conceptual naturalism of
Meiburg’s 2006-10 ‘island
trilogy’ than the protest
prog of Shearwater’s last
album, 2016's Jet Plane
And Oxbow. Inspired by
Meiburg’s South American
travels and lockdown, it’s an
album of expansive reach and
intimate ruminations, where
field recordings — monkeys,
toucans — accompany songs
of hope and dread, isolation
and connection. Late Scott
Walker and Talk Talk are doleful
touchpoints for Highgate
and the controlled drama
of Xenarthran. From brawn
to beauty, the buff Empty
Orchestra and Radiohead-
ish Aqaba offer twin peaks
of bruised resilience and
reflection. The result is an
exquisitely textured album of
radiant hymnals and restorative
eco-lullabies, sculpted for
modern trials. And, for
Meiburg, a welcome and
artistic reawakening.
Kevin Harley
After books
New Albums
Wild Horses
Indie veterans mark their sixth
album with their most escapist
music yet. By John Earls
Foals
Life Is Yours
tok
Warner 0190296274435 (CD, LP/2LP)
Arriving at the tail-end of the era when
indie bands could infiltrate the Top 40
singles chart, Foals were initially unlikely
contenders for the mainstream. Emerging
from the highbrow math-rock scene, the
Oxford quintet at least played wild and
celebratory gigs to enhance the more
tuneful aspects of 2008's fidgety debut
album Antidotes, which is reissued on
recycled vinyl on the same day as Life
Is Yours. Ever since, Foals have kept the
intricate musicianship, but utilised it in
search of the ultimate smart funk workout.
That hasn't always worked: despite the
title track’s phenomenal groove, much of
2015's self-conscious What Went Down
was like George Michael with a 2:2 in
sports science. Having explored all their
styles on 2019's enjoyably sprawling two-
part epic Everything Not Saved Will Be
Lost, the band — now down to a trio after
keyboardist Edwin Congreave left during
early album sessions to
take a post-grad economics
degree — have settled
on what seems the ideal
path. Forget growing old
gracefully, Foals’ sixth record
is up for it and chasing the
simple pleasures.
Despite working with a
team of producers for the
first time, Foals’ sound is
at its most cohesive since
punchy third album Holy
Fire. Although recording
began during the winter
lockdown of 2020, the
trio encapsulate escapist
yearning brilliantly, whether for chaotic nights out
on 2am or for summer travels in 2001, whose
abandoned party mood earns the joyful outro
its own interlude track as (Summer Sky). Yannis
Guitarist Jimmy Smith on
the influence of Weezer
and kingfishers on Foals’
new album.
Did you know when you began Life Is Yours
that you’d make such an escapist album?
It’s one of the first times we've truly achieved what
we'd set out to. | vividly remember sitting around
with our drummer, Jack [Bevan], in September
2020, talking about Weezer’s Blue Album: how
it’s So escapist as it’s its own little world, of a
10-song pop/rock package. We wanted something
simpler that, once you get to the end, you maybe
immediately want to let it roll again.
How easy was it to achieve that aim in reality?
With four different producers, there was a lot of
noise going on. John Hill was like the executive
108 Record Collector
Phillippakis’ singing is richer
than ever, duetting with
himself in dazzling fashion
on The Sound, where his
falsetto and gruffer register do
battle on a visceral guitar pop
assault. Throughout, Jimmy
Smith’s choppy guitars keep
Philippakis’ vocals taut, equal
parts Ze Records tight funk and imperious Talking
Heads pop. Although he still doesn’t have a full-
time bassist to bounce off since Walter Gervers’
departure in 2018, Jack Bevan’s fluid drumming is
producer, overseeing things, and he did a great job
of stripping stuff out. That was mostly my fault, as
| was putting arpeggios over everything.
Why did you use a team of producers for the
first time?
It wasn’t calculated, we were just indulging
ourselves with people we’d always wanted to work
with. We'd discussed John having that executive
role and we loved working with Dan Carey. Miles
James is less well-known, but we wanted him for
the meticulous way he approaches drums. Miles
and Jack were tuning drums for hours and hours.
AK Paul was on our hitlist as part of the mysterious
Paul brothers with Jai Paul. That guy is a magician.
What was it like recording at Real World
during lockdown?
We've recorded in a few fancy studios, but it’s
really special there. There’s nowhere else where
you can record looking at wildlife. We bubbled
ourselves off during Covid and Real World was a
welcome distraction. It can be easy to overthink
Foals:
equestrian time
adept, a powerhouse storm on the title track and
enticingly disco on Flutter. Only the routine thud of
Getting High fails among the euphoria elsewhere,
with lead single Wake Me Up matched by the
closing Wild Green for a fantastic example of a
band still out to cut loose, when most of their peers
have entered the reflective and thoughtful stage of
their career.
Although their intense image is of a band who
are never satisfied, always yearning for the next
step up, Foals deserve to bask in accomplishing
their most complete and exciting aloum. After 15
years, that’s a rare achievement.
what you’re doing, and looking at a family of
kingfishers meant | wasn’t craning my head
over to look at my fretboard. It added a lightness
to everything.
Any plans for more soundtrack work after
Neptune was reworked with Hans Zimmer for
Brian Cox’s BBC2 series Universe?
Foals is full-on and it'd be hard to juggle the two,
but I’d absolutely be interested. Me and Yannis
[Philippakis, Foals frontman] have so much music
sitting in the archives. There’s a lot of ambient
stuff waiting for the right offer.
Antidotes is reissued on vinyl with Life Is
Yours. How do you view the album 14
years on?
People still seem to cherish it, as do we, as it’s
our first child. It’s the album we laboured over the
most, and | love it. It’s aged really well.
| can’t believe it’s that long ago. Being in New York
with Dave Sitek producing, that was a “My God!”
experience. As told to John Earls.
Photo (Katie Spencer): Luke Hallett
Katie Spencer
The Edge Of The Land
tokotkk
Lightship Records LR 001 CD
(CD, LP)
Yorkshire singer-
songwriter’s ace second
. =e" The influence
of the natural
oh) and built
EA) environment
runs deeply
through Katie Spencer’s
album. Recorded live in
the studio in just two days,
the highly impressive result
sees Spencer’s thoughtful
songwriting complemented
by consistently excellent
musicianship, as evidenced
on the reflective opener,
Take Your Time. Elsewhere,
the landscape’s recurrent
presence appears on
excellent songs such as
the evocative title track,
Silence On The Hillside and
Shannon Road. The latter
track typifies the album’s
quality; imaginative imagery
supported by compelling
music that summons up
the best of early 70s folk,
fluently delivered here with
its own contemporary power.
This is a fine collection
of memorable songs by
an outstanding writer and
musician. Steve Burniston
Jimi Tenor
Multiversum
kkk
Bureau B BB401 (LP, CD)
Improbable crossovers
from Finland’s electro-jazz
beatmaker
Clearly,
lockdown
did little to
mS restrain Jimi
al Tenor, whose
work increasingly seems
to operate outside of time
and space. Worlds don’t so
much collide as melt into
each other on Multiversum,
on which a song called
Uncharted Waters finds Tenor
intoning the lyric “Highway
empty, open wide”, the
implication of deep-sea
Katie Spencer: the
Yorkshire artist has
made a startling second
driving saying everything
about the improbable realms
this Finnish electro-jazz
polymath creates. The four-
to-the-floor kick beneath
Baby Free Spirit recalls his
early 90s beat-making,
while Bass Kalimba Dance
takes a bare-bones swing at
the borderless approach to
rhythms that defined 2020's
Aulos. Whether flaunting his
flautism (Monday Blue) or
pulling one of his periodic
Gary Wilson seductions
(Birthday Magic), Tenor
never misses a trick as he
upends his kit bag and lets
the contents spill across the
floor. Jason Draper
The Wave Pictures
When The Purple
Emperor Spreads His
Wings
tkokk
Moshi Moshi MOSHILP 117 (2LP, CD)
Endearingly eccentric and
often emotional
Forever on the
cusp of a
breakthrough,
The Wave
Pictures return
with When The
Purple Emperor Spreads His
Wings, an ambitious double-
album with each side
devoted to a season. Leader
David Tattersall wrote a song
a day during lockdown, and
the album showcases the
breadth of the Loughborough
trio’s talents, from the
sincere (the floating,
acoustic River Of Gold) to the
silly (the glam-stomping
Hazel Irvine). Back In the City
is so Velvets you think you’ve
just found an outtake from
Loaded. With the passing of
Pat Fish, When The Purple
Emperor Spreads His
Wings has that Jazz Butcher
outsiderdom shuffle —
frequently irresistible,
sometimes a trifle glib. If this
writer was 17, he would
think this the greatest album
ever; 40 years on, he still
thinks it’s pretty good.
Daryl Easlea
aia
~~
Working Men’s Club: a
labour of love, despite
what it looks like
Wilco
Cruel Country
tokokk
dBpm Records 051497337483
(2CD, 2LP)
Unexpected double from
art-rock institution
me The way
frontman Jeff
™ Tweedy tells it,
“Sm Crue! Country
SEE js Wilco’s take
on country music, inspired
by a collective urge to play
the music that felt the
most like communion after
the six-piece’s pandemic-
enforced break. The songs
that emerged suggested
a narrative to Tweedy that
loosely paralleled the story of
the United States, or at least
evoked the singer’s feeling
about his birthplace. Hence
the double entendre of a
title. They have reconnected
with the direct, rootsy sound
of their early years, but
there’s always a twist — off-
kilter percussion from the
staggering Glenn Kotche;
guitarist Nels Clines’ mini
firework displays of solos;
Tweedy’s idiosyncratic lyrics.
And for all of the more
straightforward-sounding
country-ish tunes, there are
so many side-steps: the way
the somnambulant psych of
The Empty Condor staggers
into life; the existential
awe of The Universe; the
Dead-like cosmic jam,
Many Worlds. It makes for
a marvellous and consistent
outpouring of creativity.
Jamie Atkins
REVIEWS
7
ANG
ee
Working Men’s Club
Fear Fear
tkokk
Heavenly HVNLP 203 (CD, LP)
More twisted TV themes
in waiting
This
Todmorden
collective’s
breakthrough
single Teeth
was an insistent slice of
Underworld-style dark dance
that became the theme to
BBC2’s murderous comedy
drama Guilt. They're in no
rush to change the formula
on album two. Leader Syd
Minsky-Sargeant claims Fear
Fear is less minimal, but his
band still excel at hypnotic
repetition. New Order remain
an obvious touchstone, but
there’s a more Kraftwerk feel
this time, especially on the
childlike “What does this
button do?” mood of Plays. A
gleefully macabre world,
again full of would-be TV
idents. John Earls
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